Williams May Sue Ex-Officer for Libel : LAPD: Chief’s lawyer says he may take action for remarks urging Police Commission to investigate alleged misconduct. No wrongdoing has been found.

In a highly unusual reaction from a public official, Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams may sue a critic for libel.

The critic is a former high-ranking LAPD officer who recently urged the Police Commission to investigate rumors that Williams had improperly solicited private favors, misused public equipment and accepted free hotel rooms in Las Vegas.

The chief has denied any wrongdoing and the Police Commission, which is investigating, has found none so far.

But out of concern that publicity about the investigation may be impairing Williams’ effectiveness in rebuilding the department’s shaken reputation and morale, some of the city’s African American leaders have begun to rally around him and to call for other leaders, including Mayor Richard Riordan, to do the same. Williams is Los Angeles’ first black chief.

The black leaders, including the chief’s lawyer, Melanie Lomax, who is a former police commissioner, are urging Riordan to voice his confidence in the chief and to urge the Police Commission to expedite its investigation.

So far, the mayor’s office has resisted, restricting its public comments to bland expressions of good wishes for Williams and faith that the Police Commission will do a good job of investigating him.

These kinds of lukewarm comments have fueled fears among some of Williams’ backers that Riordan may be planning to make Williams a fall guy in the event the mayor’s own efforts to expand the police force significantly, as he promised in his campaign, fail.

“There’s a tendency in some circles to wonder if the chief is being made a scapegoat (by the mayor’s office),” Los Angeles Urban League Executive Director John Mack said.

As the political situation surrounding Williams and the mayor began to heat up Tuesday, Lomax disclosed that Williams was considering suing former LAPD Deputy Chief Stephen Downing.

Lomax had a letter hand-delivered Sunday to Downing’s residence. The letter demanded that Downing “retract certain statements you have made about Chief Williams. . . . In the event you refuse this demand, Chief Williams has authorized my office to review his legal options, including taking action to file a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court against you for libel, slander, defamation of character.”

Lomax declined Tuesday to discuss the unusual possibility of a lawsuit by the chief, saying only: “He has rights like anybody else.”

Lomax said Downing’s statements about Williams to the Police Commission had “crossed the line from a concerned citizen complaint to defamation. . . . My recommendation is that the chief take whatever legal steps are needed to protect himself.”

At the same time, she said, neither she nor the chief was disputing the Police Commission’s obligation to review the rumors of improprieties.

Police Commissioner Gary Greenebaum said the chief has always been cooperative with the investigation, and added that on Tuesday, Williams “made information and records available” that the commission needs to conduct its probe. Greenebaum declined to be more specific.

Downing responded in his own letter to Lomax that he had nothing to retract. He denied that he had made any allegations of wrongdoing against Williams, acknowledging that he considers the chief a poor administrator and leader.

Downing said he had merely made a proper citizen request that the Police Commission investigate persistent rumors within the department and among retirees that the chief and his family had misused city cars, drivers and cellular phones, had improperly solicited perks such as free tickets to the Universal Studios tour and had accepted free lodging from casino hotels.

“Those allegations need to be investigated and put to bed one way or other,” he reiterated Tuesday.

Downing added that he considered Lomax’s letter about a possible lawsuit a threat from the chief.

The former deputy chief asked the Police Commission to provide him with a lawyer to defend him at public expense if the chief sues. Downing said he deserves that because “it was a member of the board who leaked my name to the press and compromised my reasonable expectation of privacy when corresponding with the board.”

Police Commissioner Deirdre Hill said the board passed Downing’s request along to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office. But she denied that any member of the board had leaked Downing’s name, and she said she did not know how his name or a brief description of his original letter had found its way to The Times.

Downing, who retired from the department in 1980 to pursue a second career as a television writer and producer, provided the full text of his letter to The Times the day after the brief description appeared, saying that he felt the summary account, attributed to unidentified sources, contained distortions.

Williams’ supporters are concerned that the current attacks on the chief may be part of a plan that aims ultimately at the removal of Williams, the city’s first chief to have a renewable five-year contract rather than Civil Service protection.

Williams, halfway through his first term, remains extremely popular among residents, according to polls, but as an outsider brought in from Philadelphia, he has alienated many in the department.

“Absolutely we’re concerned that this could . . . indeed cause his demise,” Mack said.

Mack is organizing a news conference, tentatively set for Thursday at Parker Center, to show public support for Williams.