Employee Describes Abuses by City Clerk : Hearing: Woman testifies that dismissed official sexually harassed her. She admits drinking during one incident and before reporting claims.

In a quiet, halting voice, the woman whose allegations of sexual harassment helped topple Los Angeles City Clerk Elias (Lee) Martinez recounted details of her charges Tuesday and acknowledged that she had been drinking before she angrily reported her charges to a supervisor.

Facing Martinez for the first time with the charges, the woman testified during a Civil Service Commission hearing that he put his hand on her thigh in a bar, rubbed his pelvis against her in his office and played footsie with her under a restaurant table. She said she never told Martinez to stop the behavior because he was her boss.

“I felt so embarrassed . . . that I let it happen that way,” the woman said. “I wanted to tell myself that nothing really happened. I didn’t want anyone to know that something did happen.”

Clearly uncomfortable on the witness stand, the woman said she had been drinking heavily during the first incident and, months later, had a glass of wine before reporting the matter.

The woman’s drinking during the workday is one factor being used by the defense to question her credibility.

“She’s lying,” said Martinez’s attorney, Robert Dohrmann, who is seeking to have Martinez reinstated to his $116,000-a-year position in City Hall. “A person under the influence of alcohol is not a credible witness to events while they were under the influence.”

Deputy City Atty. Molly Roff-Sheridan acknowledged that the woman was intoxicated when the first incident took place and had been drinking before she made the allegations public to her supervisors. But Roff-Sheridan disagreed that the drinking called into question the woman’s testimony.

Roff-Sheridan said Martinez took advantage of the woman in the first case by inviting her to a bar after a lunchtime party and buying her two more drinks; in the second instance, Roff-Sheridan called the glass of wine “a truth serum” that gave her the confidence to make the allegations public.

The woman--who held one of the lowest ranking positions in the office--had a “spotless” work record and had not had anything to drink during two of the three incidents of harassment, Roff-Sheridan said.

It was Anita Hill’s allegations during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings in 1991 that prompted the woman to come forward with the allegations, Roff-Sheridan said.

Days after Hill first made her allegations on national television--prompting a national debate on sexual harassment--the employee learned during a lunchtime discussion that others in the office had also allegedly been harassed by Martinez.

With that in mind and after having had a glass of wine at lunch, the woman gained the courage to go to supervisors with the allegations, Roff-Sheridan said. She asked one of her bosses, Michael Carey, if he would be surprised if there were “three Anita Hills in the office.”

After filing an informal complaint, the woman agreed she would be satisfied if she were transferred to another city department and if Martinez were counseled. The matter ended there until the woman grew angry that nobody in the city had informed her if anybody had talked to Martinez.

She wrote a letter to Council President John Ferraro, who passed it on to Mayor Tom Bradley. He called for the investigation to be revived and eventually found grounds to fire Martinez. After weeks of delays, that decision was upheld in June by the City Council.

When the hearing on Martinez’s appeal resumes Thursday, several additional women are expected to testify that Martinez ogled them or subjected them to suggestive questioning in the office.

Martinez, a 32-year city employee, has argued that the harsh punishment doled out by the mayor was in retaliation for what Bradley perceived as an act of political betrayal by Martinez. The clerk, ignoring Bradley’s objections, placed a measure on the ballot that reduced the mayor’s power over city commissions.

“I feel confident I will be reinstated,” Martinez said at the end of the day’s testimony. “Clearing my name is something else.”