Cunliffe Whistle-Blower Settles City Suit : Agrees to $800,000 Award; Council’s Approval Still Required

Whistle-blower Robert O’Neill, a key figure in the forced retirement of Sylvia Cunliffe as general manager of Los Angeles’ General Services Department last year, has agreed to an $800,000 settlement of his lawsuit against the city, authorities said Thursday.

Deputy City Atty. Art Walsh said the city and O’Neill, 48, a real estate officer in Cunliffe’s department, appeared before Superior Court Judge Bruce R. Geehnaert on Monday to place the agreement on record. The settlement still must be approved by the City Council.

“All parties are satisfied,” Walsh said.

O’Neill’s lawyer, Jay Plotkin, told United Press International that O’Neill felt both “relieved” and “vindicated” by the settlement.

Before filing suit, O’Neill had made several anonymous telephone calls on a city corruption hot line, accusing Cunliffe of improprieties. He charged that, in retaliation, Cunliffe tried to discredit him by revealing his youthful troubles with the law.

In a memo to Mayor Tom Bradley and the City Council, Cunliffe said that criminal records showed that O’Neill had been convicted of misdemeanors in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Connecticut, had had an alcohol problem and was “a known gambler.”

Bradley subsequently charged that O’Neill’s privacy had been violated. Cunliffe had “falsely implied that Mr. O’Neill was dishonest and had never rehabilitated himself,” he said.

“It was quite clear that her purpose in sending the memoranda was as an act of reprisal against Mr. O’Neil,” Bradley said.

The mayor urged Cunliffe’s firing because of allegations that she had hired her mother and other relatives, favored friends in granting of contracts, rented city-owned property and invaded O’Neill’s privacy.

The controversy ended when Cunliffe, then 54, agreed to retire with full pension benefits on March 4, 1988, her birthday. The agreement, approved by the City Council after a half-hour debate, spared Cunliffe from possibly being fired.

The City Council agreed to pay Cunliffe’s share of damages and legal fees. As a result, the settlement announced Thursday provided that O’Neill drop his case against his former boss as well as the city.