SAN DIEGO — Turning up the pressure on Mayor Bob Filner to resign, three former supporters Monday released details of his alleged sexual harassment of women, including the forcible kissing of two constituents and grabbing the buttocks and breast of a staff member. 
 
 In a City Hall elevator, Filner told a female staffer that women employees would do better "if they worked without their panties on," attorney Marco Gonzalez said at a news conference outside City Hall. 
 
 Filner's behavior toward women is so egregious that women who work for him call him a "dirty old man" and coined the phrases "the Filner headlock" and "the Filner dance" to describe how he isolates women and then makes unwanted advances, Gonzalez said. 
 
 The accusations came two hours after the 70-year-old Democrat issued a statement saying he would not resign and that a fair investigation would find him innocent of sexual harassment. 
 
 "As your elected mayor, I fully expect to be accountable to the citizens of San Diego for all of my actions," Filner said in his statement. "But as a citizen of this country, I also expect — and am entitled to — due process, and the opportunity to respond in a fair and impartial venue to specific allegations." 
 
 Later Monday, Filner told San Diego television station KUSI that his behavior has been misinterpreted. "I'm a hugger of both men and women," he said. He said he has apologized to his staff. 
 
 Although Filner last week admitted to treating women on his staff poorly, he stopped short of admitting to sexual harassment. He also promised to seek professional help, take a sexual harassment class and apologize to women he may have offended. 
 
 Filner said he has hired a retired county official, Walt Ekard, as interim chief operating officer to make sure the workings of government are not hurt by the controversy. Ekard will take over many of the powers that Filner wielded: approving city contracts, giving orders to employees, selecting top management officials. 
 
 On Monday, Filner's ex-fiancee, Bronwyn Ingram, told local public radio station KPBS that Filner should resign and that she had caught him making dates with other women and sending them sexually explicit emails. She added, however, that she does not know whether allegations that he harassed his staff are true. 
 
 At the news conference held by Gonzalez, attorney Cory Briggs and former Councilwoman Donna Frye, several Filner supporters carried signs reading "Due Process for Mayor Filner." 
 
 But in impassioned, even angry tones, Frye and the two attorneys rejected the idea that Filner is being denied due process. 
 
 Gonzalez said a sexual harassment claim will be filed with city officials. Lawsuits are also a possibility, he said. "Bob Filner is tragically unsafe for any woman to approach," Frye said. 
 
 Frye and the lawyers, all longtime Filner supporters, declined to release the names of women making allegations against him or disclose how many women they have interviewed about the mayor. 
 
 Briggs said they are trying to "balance the public's right to know and the women's right to privacy." 
 
 Gonzalez said that once a claim is filed, investigators would talk to other mayoral staff members and the police officers assigned to the mayor's security detail. They will find that Filner has a pattern of pushing himself on women, starting with leering comments and then escalating to forcible kissing and groping, Gonzalez said. 
 
 Frye said that Filner makes sure he is alone with a woman, then asks whether she is married and then hands out compliments. With one constituent, he ended up forcibly kissing her, Frye said. 
 
 He did the same with another constituent and then, even after she rebuffed his advances, he grabbed one of her breasts, Frye said. 
 
 "This mayor cannot control himself," Gonzalez said. "He does not deserve to be the mayor of this city any longer." 
 
 Last week, after Filner released a contrite video and admitted "I need help," Frye, Gonzalez and Briggs rejected his plea as inadequate. 
 
 To allow Filner to remain in office would only "enable" him to continue abusing women, said Frye, who worked briefly for Filner. 
 
 As supporters, Frye and Gonzalez said they talked to Filner before going public with last week's demand. They realized he would not change, they said. 
 
 Only Filner's resignation will "help stop this horrible, horrible civic nightmare," Frye said. 
 
 Several members of the City Council — Democrats and Republicans — have called for Filner to resign, as have a list of other officeholders. On Monday, Reps. Susan Davis and Scott Peters, both San Diego Democrats, called for him to step down. 
 
 "His behavior, if not illegal, is reprehensible," Davis said. 
 
 tony.perry@latimes.com ||||| SAN DIEGO — Mayor Bob Filner will complete his "voluntary" behavioral modification therapy on Saturday, earlier than anticipated, his lawyers said Friday. 
 
 Filner will take "some personal time" and be unavailable for comment, said a statement by the law firm of Payne & Fears, which is assisting Filner in his defense against a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former staff member. He is set to return to City Hall on Aug. 19. 
 
 Filner will continue therapy as an outpatient, his lawyers said. 
 
 Filner had said he would be in the intensive therapy program the weeks of Aug. 5 and 12. But he reportedly started the program earlier than announced. 
 
 The law firm's announcement came as the last two City Council members called for Filner to bow to numerous demands that he resign and "allow the healing of our city to begin." 
 
 The call by Marti Emerald and Myrtle Cole, both Democrats, makes it unanimous: All nine council members want Filner gone because of accusations that he sexually harassed numerous women. 
 
 Also Friday, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a longtime ally, issued an open letter addressed to "Dear Bob," asking him to resign and seek long-term treatment. Boxer's letter had a personal tone, noting their long careers working for many of the same political causes. 
 
 "Bob, you have already hurt so many people," Boxer wrote. "To avoid hurting your victims and the people of San Diego more than you already have, you should step down immediately." 
 
 Filner, 70, elected in November as San Diego's first Democratic mayor in two decades, is hoping to ride out a tide of sexual misconduct accusations and demands by fellow politicians and others for him to resign. 
 
 Some 14 women have accused Filner of making unwanted and unpleasant sexual advances. One, former communications director Irene McCormack Jackson, has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court seeking unspecified damages. 
 
 The accusations of the other 13 share a similar scenario: that they met Filner at a public event or while asking for his help on a public issue and that he made sexually inappropriate comments, asked them for dates, and, in some cases, kissed or touched them. 
 
 Among the 13 are prominent businesswomen, a retired Navy admiral, a political consultant, two college officials, a nurse seeking help for a wounded Marine and a longtime city employee. 
 
 Emerald and Cole said the breaking point came when two former military personnel, both victims of sexual assault during their military service, accused Filner of making crude advances starting at a conference designed to help women who have suffered sexual assault. 
 
 Filner's alleged victims are being interviewed by San Diego County Sheriff's Department investigators and personnel from the state attorney general's office. 
 
 With reporters scrambling to find where Filner was receiving the therapy, the most likely candidate was the Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles. 
 
 Founded in 1995, the Pico-Robertson clinic specializes in helping men who cannot "take a month away from work to deal with their compulsive behavior" but want a "treatment program that could cover the same territory in half the time." 
 
 The clinic's website says it is "the nation's only comprehensive two-week intensive treatment program for sexual addiction." 
 
 The institute has a program for the weeks of Aug. 5 and 12, when Filner announced that he would be undergoing therapy to begin to change a long pattern of disrespectful, abusive behavior toward women. 
 
 A spokeswoman for the clinic declined Friday to confirm or deny that Filner was a client, citing federal laws about confidentiality of medical information. 
 
 The clinic attempts to shield the privacy of its clients. Staffers this week ordered television reporters parked near the facility to move as clients were arriving in a van. 
 
 In a video on the institute's website, founder Rob Weiss, a clinical social worker and sex addiction therapist, said the clinic helps people who have successful lives that are being disrupted by compulsive behavior involving sex. 
 
 "We can help restore some integrity to your life," Weiss said. 
 
 tony.perry@latimes.com
– If your female employees have named a headlock after you, odds are, you're a pretty bad boss. San Diego Mayor Bob Filner allegedly falls into that category, we learned yesterday, as attorney Marco Gonzalez finally detailed some of the sexual harassment allegations that he and other ex-Filner supporters have been hinting at. Female staffers call him a "dirty old man," and came up with the phrases "the Filner dance" and, yes, "the Filner headlock" to describe interactions with him—which allegedly include Filner grabbing the breast and butt of one staffer, the LA Times reports. Filner once told a female staffer that women in the office would do better "if they worked without their panties on," Gonzalez said. Nor did Filner confine his abuses to staffers, added Gonzalez; he allegedly forcibly kissed two constituents. The revelations came after Filner issued a statement proclaiming his innocence. "I believe a full presentation of the facts will vindicate me," he said according to CNN. Which is pretty odd given that he'd previously apologized and said he needed help. Later yesterday, he explained his behavior by saying, "I'm a hugger of both men and women."