No Misconduct in Chief’s Aid to Lawyer, Police Panel Says : LAPD: Commission meets for five hours on charge that Williams asked subordinates to assist her.

The Los Angeles Police Commission issued a terse statement Tuesday clearing Police Chief Willie L. Williams of wrongdoing in directing a subordinate to provide information to the chief’s lawyer, Melanie Lomax--information she was seeking for a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“We have completed our inquiry into this matter and have determined that no confidential information was released and that there were no violations of department policy,” the commissioners said in a written statement issued after nearly five hours of closed-door deliberations.

The session was interrupted repeatedly as commissioners summoned Williams, fielded calls from his attorney and consulted a top member of the city attorney’s staff for advice on what they could say publicly about the issue. After releasing the statement, they were escorted from police headquarters by a guard who fended off reporters’ questions.

The commissioners, some of whom had previously raised questions about Williams’ judgment in the matter, did not address that issue in their statement and did not discuss the rationale for their decision.

Lomax, in a letter to the commission, dismissed the allegation as “much ado about nothing” and emphasized that neither she nor the chief did anything wrong.

In her letter, Lomax said she had never told Williams that the information she wanted would be used in her lawsuit against the school district. She filed the suit in 1994 on behalf of a family whose son was shot at Dorsey High School; it went to trial two weeks ago, a week after she contacted Williams.

Lomax said she was only seeking general information about gangs in the Dorsey High area, not any material that might be considered confidential or sensitive.

“I want to state emphatically that I did not solicit or receive any kind of confidential information,” Lomax wrote. “I do not believe that I acted improperly in any way by seeking this public information.”

Referring to The Times’ coverage of the allegations, Lomax wrote: “I am shocked and dismayed by the charges and allegations that have been made in the newspapers.”

After reviewing the matter, Police Commission President Deirdre Hill wrote to Lomax last week and suggested that she refrain from making future requests through Williams. Tuesday was the first time that the rest of the commission was fully briefed on the issue.

The allegations of impropriety were raised by the LAPD captain whom the chief had asked to assist Lomax. The captain, Paul Marks of the Southwest area police station, said in a written employee report that Williams had asked him to help Lomax with a request for information.

“He stated that Ms. Lomax had done him a couple of favors in the past and that she now needed some information for some community groups with whom she was working,” Marks wrote. “He stated that Ms. Lomax had encountered some difficulty in getting the information and that he would appreciate it if I or someone within my command could provide her with the necessary information.”

Marks said he had a sergeant research the matter and contact Lomax. But that sergeant, according to Marks, was not able to answer all of Lomax’s questions. Instead, he told her what he could and agreed to have another officer call her back with more specific details about shootings in 1992 and 1993 in the Dorsey High area. That officer, according to Marks, was unsuccessful in reaching Lomax.

The chief’s intervention on behalf of his lawyer raised a number of questions among commission members, who said they wanted to question Williams about whether Lomax had told him the reason for her interest in the material and to determine whether the chief had violated standard LAPD procedures for handling such requests. Several commissioners were particularly troubled by the notion that Williams might have--either intentionally or inadvertently--bent department rules to assist a lawyer who was suing a government agency, in this case the school district.

Before being questioned by the commission, Williams accused reporters of “making a big thing out of nothing. There is no controversy.”

Nevertheless, commissioners wrestled with the matter all day, summoning Williams back to their session after several hours, then speaking with Lomax over the phone.

Williams left that session declining to comment. A few minutes later, Senior Assistant City Atty. Fred Merkin, the second-highest-ranking official in that office, was called to the commission. He met briefly with the board, then left--also declining to comment--minutes before the commission released its statement.

Although the commission statement makes it clear that no official action will be taken against the chief in the latest controversy, the board is preparing Williams’ personnel evaluation for the last year--one in which the chief and commission have clashed on a number of issues.

The board’s overall impressions of Williams’ judgment, competence and management skills will be part of that document. Previous evaluations have raised questions about the chief’s ability to oversee the LAPD.