San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s chief of staff was told to stop questioning the mayor’s employees about the accusations of sexual harassment against him in a memo from the City Attorney’s office, U-T San Diego reported Thursday.
Assistant City Attorney Paul Cooper issued the memo, dated Thursday and obtained by U-T San Diego, to Lee Burdick, Filner’s chief of staff, warning her that questioning Filner’s employees about the allegations was “inappropriate” and interfered with a sexual harassment lawsuit against Filner filed by his former communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson.
The memo also demanded that Burdick turn over to the city certain documents she had withheld citing attorney-client privilege or face litigation, according to the newspaper, as the City Attorney’s office wrote Burdick is “a witness in this litigation, not an attorney.”
Filner’s attorney Harvey Berger had written a letter Tuesday requesting that the city pay Filner’s legal fees in the sexual harassment suit, claiming that the city failed to provide sexual harassment training to the mayor.
