‘I Am Not a Liar,’ Chief Declares : Law enforcement: Williams says he did not solicit Las Vegas rooms and has not acted improperly. He seeks to put issue, speculation about his effectiveness to rest.

In a forceful address to the citizens of Los Angeles, Police Chief Willie L. Williams on Wednesday proclaimed that he is not to blame for controversy swirling around his leadership of the Police Department and sternly insisted: “I am not a liar.”

Williams’ statement--his first on the delicate topic of his reprimand by the Police Commission for allegedly lying about receiving free accommodations at a Las Vegas hotel--was intended to put the issue to rest, or at least to dampen the growing speculation that his effectiveness has been permanently undermined by the allegations and public disclosures of recent days.

Although Williams’ televised performance received praise, it remained unclear whether the chief had succeeded in resolving questions about his truthfulness and competence and in reclaiming his embattled leadership of the department.

Poised behind a lectern with the LAPD seal, Williams announced: “I am standing here today to say: I, Willie Williams, have never lied to any administrative body in the Los Angeles Police Department or in the city of Los Angeles, in the state of California. . . . I have never violated my oath of office, engaged in personal misconduct by misusing public resources or violated the public trust. I have asserted my innocence of these charges from the very beginning, and I am maintaining my position.”

Looking directly into the bank of television cameras that carried his address live to the city, Williams added: “I want to assure every employee in my department . . . and all the residents of this city, my city, Los Angeles, that I am an ethical and honest public official. I take very seriously my oath of office and have always conducted myself according to the highest possible standards.”

Insisting that he and his family had cooperated fully with the Police Commission investigation, Williams issued a qualified denial of the allegation that he accepted free accommodations.

“I have not now, nor have I ever, solicited any form of gratuity or received any complimentary benefit in the city of Las Vegas, from any hotel, which is not available to the general public,” Williams said. “And I pose a question: Isn’t it interesting how the facts about my family’s full cooperation in this matter have never quite made it to the media?”

At the same time, Williams pledged to fight his commission bosses--perhaps even with a lawsuit--a precarious course of action that some political observers have said could doom the remainder of his five-year term and almost certainly ensure that he would not win reappointment to the job.

In his 11-minute speech--the chief announced in advance that he would not take questions from reporters--Williams angrily said that he was being “victimized by one distorted and selective leak after another.”

“This I do not plan to stand for,” he said. “I intend to pursue where necessary and if necessary all legal avenues to preserve my legal rights and also prevent irreparable damage to my career and prevent the wholesale and indiscriminate defamation of my character and my reputation.”

He said he would battle to overturn the commission’s conclusion that he lied, and suggested that the dispute with the commission was merely a misunderstanding.

“There is clearly a difference of opinion between myself and the Police Commission relative to a particular matter, which I will not get into,” Williams said. “But it is my view that this is nothing more than misunderstanding and miscommunication, or a difference about semantics.”

Members of the Los Angeles Police Commission declined to comment in detail on Williams’ speech. But Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, a commission member, did dispute the chief’s characterization of the controversy.

“The only thing I can say is that five diverse police commissioners from different backgrounds, independently and jointly, came to the same conclusions,” Greenebaum said.

Greenebaum also forcefully denied suggestions from the chief and his attorney that commissioners were responsible for personnel files critical of Williams’ performance being reported in The Times on Wednesday. Under Times policy, the paper does not disclose information that might lead to the identification of confidential sources, either by naming them or by excluding those accused of leaking information. All five commissioners have said that they were not the source of any leaks.

“Wherever these things are coming from, as far as I know, they’re not coming from the Police Commission,” Greenebaum said. “I feel certain that they’re not. No one on the Police Commission is out to get the chief.”

Although he declined to discuss specifics, Williams suggested otherwise, portraying himself as a victim and calling on citizens to rally behind him.

“I’m very confident of my ability to lead this great Police Department,” he said as he neared the conclusion of his statement. “I say to the citizens and the people of Los Angeles, and I say to the 11,000-plus employees of the LAPD, that I deserve your continued trust and confidence as I continue to pursue vigorously the goals that have been identified by you, my customers--those goals that are necessary to ensure the welfare and improvement of police services of the city of Los Angeles.”

Despite Williams’ extraordinary statement, the public battering the chief has suffered since last week has raised a daunting question: Can he continue to lead the department?

On Wednesday, police officers, retired LAPD chiefs and some political observers said they believe Williams may not recover. But some political insiders, including some critics of the chief, wondered whether anyone has the strength or desire to force out the publicly popular Williams. And several City Council members said that the dispute has been overblown and that they do not think it will affect the chief’s tenure.

“I think this is a big thing that’s been made out of nothing,” Council President John Ferraro said. “And as long as we keep talking to the media, it will get worse. I think we ought to let this thing take its course.”

Councilman Marvin Braude, who chairs the Public Safety Committee and is one of Williams’ biggest backers, called the chief’s statement “very strong” and added: “He has the highest standards of integrity, and I have seen nothing to make me doubt that.”

By contrast, three of the chief’s predecessors said Wednesday that the substance of the disclosures raises grave doubts about whether Williams can or should continue in his current job.

“I’ve shied against any opportunity to criticize this man,” said retired LAPD Chief Ed Davis. “But there’s no place for a Los Angeles police chief who lies to his superiors. . . . I would tote up the 2 1/2 years of pay [remaining in Williams’ five-year term] and give it to him and tell him to go.”

Tom Reddin, another retired LAPD chief, agreed. “If the politicians had the courage of their convictions, the City Council in particular, they would ask him to leave,” Reddin said. “I think his ability to lead is so damaged by these disclosures that I don’t see how he can climb out of it.”

Reddin and Davis have generally avoided criticizing Williams publicly, but the chief’s immediate predecessor, Daryl F. Gates, has taken different posture, openly scorning Williams’ management and accusing him of damaging LAPD morale, among other things.

Gates said the recent disclosures further erode Williams’ ability to manage the department, and the retired chief urged his successor to release all his personnel files.

“It’s absolutely incumbent upon him to allow the commission to report this material publicly,” Gates said. “I just bridle at this confidentiality stuff. It really bothers me.”

As questions about Williams’ future preoccupied City Hall and the LAPD’s Parker Center headquarters, council members met in closed session Wednesday morning. Ferraro said afterward that the council had decided not to challenge, at least for now, the commission’s reprimand of the chief under new provisions of city law.

“It appeared to be the sense of the council that the charter-mandated process should run its course, and hence no actions were taken or voted on,” Ferraro said in a prepared statement. Ferraro told reporters that he doubted whether the council would come up with the 10 votes needed to override the commission’s action, but added that Williams could appeal any discipline to the council if Mayor Richard Riordan decides not to overturn it himself.

Under that course, Williams’ appeal could come to the council in mid-June, and the members would then vote to either uphold the reprimand or to overturn it. It would take 10 votes on the 15-member body to overrule the commission. The time required for those appeals to play out could serve the valuable function of allowing emotions to subside, according to some council sources.

“The council was willing to let the time pass in order for things to quiet down,” said one council member, who asked to remain anonymous. “We want everyone to take a big step back and not make a mountain out of a molehill. There is a reluctance to put the city in a bad light or the Police Department in a bad light or to harm the chance of the chief being effective in running the department for the rest of his term.”

The council’s desire to plunge into the fray also is influenced by at least two other factors, sources said: Williams is a popular chief whose standing with the public gives potential adversaries pause, and the punishment that the commission handed down to him is relatively mild, making it less vital for Williams’ supporters to go to bat for him than if the board had fired him.

The reprimand is in one sense a mild sanction: It does not punish Williams financially in the way that a suspension would, nor does it force his removal from office. But the reprimand does signal the commission’s distrust of him, and that alone, said one ranking police official, is a “professional death sentence.”

The turmoil of the past few days has raised a number of problems for Williams, whose appointment in 1992 was hailed by many Police Department observers as an important first step toward rebuilding a department rocked by the Rodney G. King beating and the devastating 1992 riots.

Williams has enjoyed widespread public popularity for most of his tenure, but that support has been matched by a growing uncertainty about his management abilities--concerns that the Police Commission has privately expressed to him in person and in writing.

The Times reported last week that police commissioners had concluded that the chief lied to them during an investigation into whether he accepted free accommodations at a Las Vegas casino. Then, on Tuesday, The Times disclosed that the commission had reprimanded Williams, and revealed that the commission had previously been sharply critical of the chief’s management skills, concluding that he seemed to “lack focus and discernible purpose in managing the department,” among other things.

Melanie Lomax, the lawyer for Williams and a former acting president of the Police Commission, accused commissioners of leaking that information and threatened to file suit against them and the city. Ironically, Lomax herself was accused of leaking documents during her time on the commission, a historical twist that Ferraro alluded to Wednesday when asked who he thought was responsible for the information being reported about the chief.

“The attorney for the chief has had some experience with leaks,” Ferraro said wryly. Lomax did not return calls requesting comment, and she canceled a scheduled radio appearance on the topic of the Williams controversy.

In addition to Lomax, Williams has won outspoken support from Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who has joined with the attorney in suggesting that the commission, appointed by the mayor, was targeting Williams on behalf of Riordan.

The mayor has generally avoided the controversy surrounding the police chief, and on Wednesday he continued to try to steer clear of the fray.

“This is a personnel matter,” he said when asked about it. “It’s confidential and leaking this in any way is wrong.”

Asked how the drama will probably unfold from here, a source close to the mayor said: “The answer right now is, who knows?”

The source said there are still too many dynamics to sort out. “The facts have not even been reviewed yet by the council or really by the mayor,” the source said, adding that there is still the possibility that Williams could recover from the current controversy and go on to enjoy a successful completion of his five-year term, which expires in 1997.

Another City Hall source disagreed. “I don’t know how he can hang on,” this source said. “How can he govern if the five people who are his bosses determine that he lied to them?”

When the council interceded in the Williams dispute this week, the Police Commission, acting on advice from the city attorney’s office, delivered copies of its findings to Council President Ferraro and Riordan’s office.

Then, in what some sources described as an about-face, the city attorney’s office advised Ferraro and the mayor to give the copies to the city attorney’s office while more legal issues were sorted out.

When the council met in closed session Wednesday, members did not even open the packets. Riordan spokeswoman Noelia Rodriguez said the mayor’s stayed shut as well.

“We didn’t even open ours because it was directed to the mayor and the mayor wasn’t here yesterday,” she said. Rodriguez also denied that the mayor’s office was involved in an attempt to smear Williams, as the chief’s lawyer has suggested.

“We’re disappointed about these leaks,” she said, “and disappointed that people think they’re coming from us, because they’re not.”

Times staff writer James Rainey contributed to this story.