Former Pittsburgh operations director Dennis Regan was wrong to interfere with a police commander's effort to keep a tire shop from doing business in a public street, and to cancel the termination of a sergeant accused of brutality, the city's top lawyer said yesterday.

Acting city Solicitor George Specter, who conducted a probe of Mr. Regan's actions, defended his own role, saying he wasn't a witness to events he later investigated. He denied that he had heard Mr. Regan order then-Police Chief Dominic J. Costa to promote Officer Francis Rende.

"I never heard Dennis Regan tell Chief Costa to promote Frank Rende," he said, contradicting the former chief's account of an Aug. 16 meeting.

Mr. Specter spoke five days after a decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose to temporarily reinstate police Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly. She was demoted to lieutenant after sending a disciplinary report on Officer Rende to City Council members, department heads, and her husband and brother, in a successful effort to derail Mr. Regan's Oct. 2 nomination to the post of public safety director.

Officer Rende is the brother of city senior secretary Marlene Cassidy, who lives with Mr. Regan.

Cmdr. McNeilly suggested that Mr. Regan quashed her effort to discipline Officer Rende, but so far lawyers in her federal whistle-blower lawsuit haven't presented evidence backing that up.

Her legal team, including the American Civil Liberties Union, has instead presented documents suggesting that Mr. Regan interfered in other police matters.

"Catherine McNeilly may not have had all the details right, but the stench that she smelled had some cause," said ACLU legal director Witold Walczak.

A key charge, made by Chief Costa in an interview with a city investigator, is that Mr. Regan ordered Officer Rende and three other officers promoted to acting detective. Chief Costa said he received the order after the Aug. 16 meeting with Mr. Regan, Mr. Specter and Cmdr. Kathy Degler.

Mr. Specter said yesterday that he was in the meeting, but left when it ended, after Cmdr. Degler did and before any discussion of Officer Rende. He said Chief Costa's statement to the contrary was wrong.

The chief could not be reached for comment.

The conclusion of Mr. Specter's Nov. 21 report to Mayor Luke Ravenstahl found that "contradictory statements [on Mr. Regan's involvement with Officer Rende's career] cannot be completely reconciled, so the facts must speak for themselves."

Mr. Walczak said the ACLU will depose Mr. Specter to determine what he heard and why he was chosen to lead the probe.

"You should never have somebody who is a material witness be the fact-finder," he said.

Mr. Specter said since he didn't witness any conversation about Officer Rende, he couldn't have anticipated that he might become a witness.

University of Pittsburgh law professor John M. Burkoff, an ethics expert, said he saw nothing wrong with Mr. Specter handling the probe or continuing to guide the city's defense against Cmdr. McNeilly's lawsuit, as long as he's not lead counsel at trial.

Mr. Specter looked into charges that Mr. Regan asked Cmdr. RaShall Brackney to back off her effort to get Duke's Tire Service, on the South Side, to stop changing tires in the street. The late Bob O'Connor, who brought Mr. Regan into city government, was mayor then.

"I felt it was very clear. Cmdr. Brackney was acting properly," he said. "Mr. Regan was telling her not to enforce the law."

Cmdr. McNeilly has said in court testimony that Mr. Regan's effort may have been illegal. Two police officers submitted written reports suggesting that Mr. Regan said Cmdr. Brackney would be in trouble if she didn't start attending community meetings and lay off Duke's Tire.

"If these police officers swore that out, that's probable cause to file charges of official oppression or undue influence," said Mr. Walczak. "When's the last time you had a city investigation where a police officer's word was not believed over somebody else's word?"

Mr. Specter said that if asked by the mayor, he would not have recommended any referral to outside law enforcement.

"If the mayor were to ask me what to do about that, [I would have told the mayor that] Duke's Tire doesn't have the right to operate in a public street," he said.

He said Mr. Regan also had no authority to decide, on Oct. 5, to change the termination of Sgt. Mark A. Eggleton to a five-day suspension. That action occurred three days after Mr. Regan was nominated to the post of public safety director, who has the final say over police discipline. But Mr. Regan was never confirmed as director, nor made acting director.

Sgt. Eggleton is the subject of a federal lawsuit alleging that he roughed up a patron at the Original Hot Dog Shop in Oakland in 2004. The city's Office of Municipal Investigations found that he contradicted himself under oath, and he was fired.

"The Law Department had advised [Mr. Regan] not to change the disciplinary action," said Mr. Specter. "But I did not know that he was making a decision as if he was public safety director."

Mr. Regan could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Regan's decision regarding Sgt. Eggleton was not mentioned in Mr. Specter's report.

Mr. Ravenstahl announced Mr. Regan's resignation from the operations director post on Dec. 1. The mayor said he'd found "no conclusive evidence that Dennis Regan committed any wrongdoing with regard to the accusations made by Catherine McNeilly," and said he "never did, or ever authorized, any [personnel] move."

Mr. Specter said he mulled whether it was a good idea to lead the probe when the mayor assigned him that role Oct. 12.

That's when Mr. Regan and Cmdr. McNeilly were put on paid leave for what became a seven-week review. The Office of Municipal Investigations looked into whether Cmdr. McNeilly broke rules by releasing the disciplinary report, and concluded that she did, leading to her demotion.

Mr. Specter said he took on the probe because he believed Mr. Ravenstahl and Mr. Regan deserved a full, fair inquiry.

His investigation, and OMI Director Kathy Kraus' probe, included three interviews -- with Mr. Regan, Cmdr. McNeilly and former Chief Costa -- plus reviews of documents.

Mr. Specter said he was never told by the mayor or his staff how to proceed or what conclusion to reach.