Five days before Kevin P. Clark's firing was publicly announced, the police commissioner was officially told he would be ousted, Mayor Martin O'Malley said yesterday. Three days later, Clark tried to instigate a federal investigation into a political ally and close friend of the mayor.
O'Malley publicly fired Clark on Nov. 10, but the mayor had given Clark an opportunity to resign five days earlier, O'Malley said.
"I've always tried to treat people with dignity and respect, and I tried to ... afford Commissioner Clark that same opportunity," O'Malley said last night.
The fired commissioner filed a lawsuit against the mayor this week that seeks $60 million in damages for what he contends was his unlawful termination.
Police officials said yesterday that Clark went to extraordinary lengths to set the stage for one of the central allegations of his lawsuit - that O'Malley dismissed him just as he began pursuing a possible criminal case against Labor Commissioner Sean R. Malone. In the suit, Clark refers to a computer containing "graphic material." The Sun has confirmed that the machine was stolen from Malone's home and recovered by police.
Clark, reached on his cell phone last night, refused to directly answer questions.
The mayor "can say whatever he wants," said Clark, whom O'Malley recruited from New York City last year. "I'm not going to make any comments. Let him keep talking."
Yesterday, a city judge heard arguments that Clark should be immediately reinstated. Circuit Judge Joseph H.H. Kaplan denied the request and compared Clark's lawsuit to a "dime novel."
The lawsuit has little chance of succeeding, Kaplan said, and on a scale of one to 10, ranked its chances at "maybe a two."
"To put [Clark] back would be totally disruptive to the Police Department, which has already been disrupted by the May 15 dispute with his fiancee or lady friend," Kaplan said in his ruling.
Kaplan characterized the lawsuit, the trial for which will be held later, as a contract law case. But the suit has wider political implications, as Clark's complaint reveals behind-the-scenes dialogue between O'Malley and the former police commissioner, with whom the mayor was growing increasingly impatient. The lawsuit also accuses the mayor of trying to protect Malone and of overstepping his bounds by interfering in internal police investigations.
Top police commanders completed a brief, unofficial investigation yesterday and determined that Clark took several unusual steps in pursuing the Malone case, according to a police official.
"It appears to us that this case clearly was not handled properly," police spokesman Matt Jablow said. "We have serious concerns about the way the investigation [of Malone] was handled."
The computer was stolen from Malone's house Oct. 4, according to court documents. The lawsuit describes it as a police computer, but Jablow said it was not. Other sources said it was a city Labor Department computer.
A suspect was arrested late last month and charged with breaking into Malone's home and a neighbor's house, and the computer was recovered.
The recent police investigation determined that a high-ranking commander signed the computer out of the evidence control center and had a computer crimes detective examine it.
The investigation found that the detective examined the computer's contents for a time period that he believed to be proper - from when it was stolen until it was recovered. Under orders, the detective gave the computer to Clark and taught another high-ranking official how to examine computer contents.
In his lawsuit, Clark states that the graphic material found by investigators demonstrated inappropriate use of the computer. Police officials have said the material on the computer was adult pornography.
Clark's lawsuit states that internal affairs officials met with federal officials Nov. 8 to get assistance in investigating Malone.
It was the first business day after O'Malley told Clark to step down.
On Nov. 9, internal affairs detectives began preserving more evidence for federal investigators, the lawsuit states.
On Nov. 10, O'Malley publicly fired Clark and the computer was returned to Malone, who declined to comment yesterday.
City Solicitor Ralph S. Tyler declined to comment yesterday about city policy for examination of a crime victim's property, and about whether there were specific rules that applied to a city computer.
"I'd point you to the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution," which protects against illegal searches and seizure, Tyler said.
Clark's attorneys said yesterday that he acted lawfully during his entire tenure as commissioner.
A. Dwight Pettit, a member of Clark's legal team, said yesterday that he had heard that Clark may have learned of his dismissal Nov. 5.
Though unnamed in the lawsuit, the revelation of Malone's identity has put the labor commissioner in the spotlight.
