Holden Accuser Testifies No Promises Were Made to Entice Sex : Courts: Woman’s lawyers say councilman’s position of power means more than his words. She describes first time she was allegedly forced to touch his genitals.

The former receptionist who is suing Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden for sexual harassment admitted Thursday that her boss never explicitly promised her promotions or raises in exchange for sex and did not threaten her with discipline or firing if she refused his advances.

“The words were never spoken,” Marlee M. Beyda, 31, said during hours of tedious cross-examination by Holden attorney Skip Miller. “He turned it around. He said, ‘If you do these things you will get something,’ not ‘If you don’t, you won’t.’ ”

Beyda’s lawyer, Jack O’Donnell, said outside court that the 66-year-old lawmaker’s position of power is more important than his explicit statements. “The law in sexual harassment doesn’t demand that you grab somebody by the arm and throw them into a bedroom,” he said.

As the third week of the non-jury trial drew to a close, defense lawyers caught Beyda giving three different dates for one alleged incident of harassment in various sworn testimonies, and offered evidence that she had lied about receiving a bachelor’s degree from UCLA on a job application.

Noting the false statement on the application, Assistant City Atty. Wilma Pinder asked psychiatrist Gloria Johnson-Powell, “How do you know, then, that she is not lying in her allegations against the city of Los Angeles?”

But Johnson-Powell, an expert witness hired by the plaintiff, insisted: “It did not seem to me that it was false allegations.”

During Pinder’s questioning, Johnson-Powell acknowledged that Beyda reported being sexually assaulted by a friend of her father’s, having a nasty breakup with a boyfriend, being troubled by her parents’ divorce and feeling pressure to help her mother financially. The psychiatrist testified, however, that the depression and anxiety Beyda suffered were not triggered by those events. “The most pressing problem for Miss Beyda at the time was to try and resolve the situation with Mr. Holden,” Johnson-Powell said.

When Beyda returned to the witness stand Thursday, she testified that during one late-night phone conversation Holden asked what she was wearing, and that he often beckoned her to his apartment by saying, “Come over, baby. Rub my back.”

After she suffered a broken foot, the councilman said, “Come on over and I’ll lick your toes,” Beyda testified.

As Miller peppered her with questions, Beyda offered new and graphic sexual details about a May, 1991, visit to Holden’s apartment, which she says was the first of five occasions in which Holden forced her to touch his genitals.

“Did he unzip his pants or did he take his trousers off?” Miller asked.

“I think they were unzipped,” Beyda replied.

“Did you see his penis?” Miller asked.

“I saw his penis, but I didn’t really look,” she replied.

Holden has denied under oath that he ever had any sexual contact with Beyda. In an interview Thursday, he said: “She’s acting it out. It’s a script. I’ve been had.”