Cash Offered to Prevent City Lawsuits : Settlement: Newport would give damage awards to female Police Department employees in exchange for promise not to pursue sex harassment cases against it.

NEWPORT BEACH —  City officials have offered cash damage awards to several women employees of the Police Department in exchange for their promises that they will refrain from filing sexual harassment lawsuits against the city, as 10 others have done.

City Manager Kevin J. Murphy would not disclose how many women had been offered money, or how much money each had been offered. But Murphy said that some women had already accepted the settlement while others are still considering it.

Police Department employees said they believe there have been about a dozen offers and that the awards are as high as $25,000 for some individuals.

Those approving the offers are “accepting a sum of money for the damages they may have suffered,” and releasing “the city, its officers and its agents” from further liability, Murphy said. In arranging the settlements, the city “attempted to quantify how much individuals had been damaged” by sexual harassment in the department, he added.

The cash offers came after the women told the city’s investigator of their experiences at the department. The city launched its own investigation into sexual harassment at the department in response to a lawsuit against the city, Capt. Anthony Villa and former Chief Arb Campbell.

Campbell was fired last month, and the city has also moved to fire Villa.

The offers were criticized by Campbell and Villa’s attorney, and praised by the lawyer representing the 10 current and former female police employees who filed the suit.

The lawsuit, originally filed Sept. 24 in Superior Court, charges that the Police Department is “a hotbed of sexually offensive conduct,” and includes a dispatcher’s claim that Campbell and Villa raped her after a police party in 1981.

After conducting 170 interviews with police employees, including all the women and all the supervisors, the city’s investigator concluded that “a trier of fact might find that conduct of a sexually harassing nature occurred.”

Murphy said Wednesday that while the cash awards are intended in part to discourage more women from joining the lawsuit, their main purpose is to compensate employees for the harassment.

“We determined that we would again be guided by doing the right thing,” he said.

Steven Pingell, the attorney representing the women in the lawsuit, said the city’s offers “absolutely” will help his clients’ case.

“It’s proof positive that what we’ve been saying since last September is a real event,” Pingell said. “They’ll try to keep their monies down, but I don’t think they’re in any position to deny what happened.”

The city apparently made its offers without consulting Bruce Praet, Campbell and Villa’s attorney in the women’s lawsuit, who said he is “curious” and “disappointed” by the decision.

“If it’s a purely economic decision, then maybe it’s appropriate,” Praet said. “The unfortunate thing is the inference drawn by the public. The inference is: ‘Gee, the city wouldn’t settle unless there was some merit to it.’ ”