SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The second city of San Diego employee to accuse Bob Filner of sexual harassment said Thursday the mayor asked her for a date and put her in a headlock at a city event.
The woman used only her first name -- Stacy -- during an interview on KOGO radio with hosts Chip Franklin and LaDona Harvey. She said she was a single mother who had been a city employee for 32 years when, in April, Filner came to a function held by the small department she manages.
She said she introduced herself to Filner, who stepped aside to be interviewed by a high school journalism student but kept looking at her in a leering way that made her uncomfortable. Later he returned and asked her to go to lunch, she said.
"Then he took both my hands and he held them -- and he holds them kind of around the wrists and around the hands, kind of so you can't move," Stacy told the station.
She said his tight grip seemed less sexual and more about control.
"And he said, 'I just want to make this clear, I'm not asking you out on a business lunch, I'm asking you out for a date,"' Stacy said.
He said whenever he saw a beautiful woman, he always had to go talk to her, according to the employee.
Stacy became the 14th woman to publicly describe unwanted advances from Filner. Some of the other women said he groped them and tried to kiss them.
Earlier this week, two women said he made passes at them at a function for female military veterans who had been raped while in the service.
Filner is undergoing behavioral therapy -- which a psychologist described as "intensive" -- at an undisclosed location. The mayor apologized for his conduct but denied that it was sexual harassment.
Stacy said she felt "rattled" by Filner's request and told her two staffers about the "really weird" encounter.
However, Filner approached her from behind and put each arm around her in what she now knows as the "Filner Headlock," she said.
"He clamped it on, so I was basically encased in his grip," Stacy said. "At that moment, I froze, because he started to loosen his chokehold and his elbow was getting dangerously low to the front of my body. I didn't know how low he was going to drop it. It was inching toward the chest."
Her two staffers witnessed Filner's actions and he told them, "I like to get really close to my city employees," she said.
Stacy said she told Filner she was getting embarrassed, so he wandered off.
She said she filed two complaints against Filner and is awaiting their resolution.
The other city worker to step forward, former mayoral Communications Director Irene McCormack Jackson, hired Los Angeles-based women's rights attorney Gloria Allred and sued Filner and the city.
Wednesday, lawyers for Filner moved to have the case moved to Imperial County because of media coverage that has been "widespread, unrelenting, intense and outspoken."
Allred said she would oppose the motion in a court hearing set for Sept. 16 in San Diego Superior Court.
While we cannot confirm he's there, News 8 has learned that the Sexual Recovery Institute in Beverly Hills is offering two weeks of intensive therapy during the exact dates of Filner's absence, August 5 through the August 16.
Their five-day-a-week, eight-hour-a-day session specifically addresses professional and workplace sexual misconduct, which the mayor is accused of.
News 8 has also learned the cost of the institute's intensive two week program is around $12,500, without housing included. The institute recommends clients stay in a locally supervised residential recovery house or at a nearby hotel during their treatment.
We called and emailed the Sexual Recovery Institute to get confirmation that the mayor is being treated at their facility, but they did not return our messages.
Filner has so far rebuffed numerous calls for his resignation from political and business leaders, including seven of the nine members of the City Council, the San Diego County Democratic Party Central Committee, former Mayor Jerry Sanders, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles and Senate Majority Leader Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento.
