As Filner Heads to Therapy, La Jolla Accuser Comes Forward

Originally posted at 11:38 a.m. Sunday Aug. 4, 2013.

Another woman, this one linked to La Jolla, has spoken out against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner, and a newly unified effort to recall the embattled politician is preparing to start collecting the nearly 102,000 signatures necessary to qualify for the ballot.

The latest came Saturday when La Jolla bank employee Renee Estill-Sombright told 10News.com the mayor made an inappropriate comment to her in June during a benefit at a church. 

She is the 10th woman to have alleged that Filner approached her in a manner which made them uncomfortable.

“We were standing face to face and he held on to me and he was like ‘You are so beautiful and I just cannot take my eyes off of you,’” she told 10News. “I said ‘Oh, thank you.’ I kind of felt weird.”

At the event, in La Jolla, Estill-Sombright said Filner asked whether she was married, held both of her hands as he talked and asked whether he could take her out sometime.

She later told her bank manager about the encounter and was surprised to learn Filner was engaged. 

His former fiancee, disability analyst Bronwyn Ingram, 48, broke off her four-year relationship with Filner just days before the first sexual harassment allegations became public, according to KPBS-TV. 

The revelations led to two separate pushes to recall Filner, who was elected in November. The efforts have now been combined into a single campaign.

Stampp Corbin, the publisher of LGBT Weekly, and Michael Pallmary, a La Jolla land use consultant, said they wanted San Diego residents to have a say in whether Filner, who has rebuffed numerous calls to resign, should remain mayor.

They can begin collecting signatures Aug. 18.

The unification of the recall effor came at the end of a week in which the area's business community broke its silence over the issue and more women came forward to describe their interactions with the mayor.

Filner's predecessor, Jerry Sanders, said the mayor needs to be ousted because he has opened San Diego to national “ridicule.” Sanders is now the head of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The Business Leadership Alliance, an umbrella organization of 44 local business groups, and the Port Tenants Association, which represents the hotels, restaurants, shipyards and other commercial concerns along San Diego's waterfront, called on Filner to step down.

The groups contend publicity from the allegations against the mayor have damaged San Diego's economy.

However, Tom Lemmon, head of the San Diego County Building and Construction Trades Council, said many labor leaders support Filner's plea for due process.

“It's an awkward situation, but we have a lot invested in him,” Lemmon told UT-San Diego. “We believe in due process, so let it take its course.”

Meanwhile, Filner is scheduled to begin two weeks of behavioral therapy at an undisclosed location Monday, in an effort to “become a better person” amid continued accusations of alleged groping, crude comments and other inappropriate sexual advances.

Of the 10 women who have accused the 70-year-old mayor of unwanted advances, one has sought a legal remedies. Former mayoral Communications Director Irene McCormack Jackson, represented by high-profile attorney Gloria Alled, sued Filner and the city for an unspecified amount.

Escondido Deputy Mayor Olga Diaz also has described a “weird” encounter with the former 10-term congressman, who announced at a July 26 news conference that he would take a break to address his failure to respect women.

“I am responsible for my conduct and I must take responsibility for my conduct by taking action so that such conduct does not ever happen again,” Filner said.

The mayor said he would receive daily briefings on city business while in therapy. He is set to work Aug. 19.

Filner, who has admitted to having a problem dealing with women, denies his actions constitute sexual harassment.

– City News Service contributed to this report.