MARTINEZ — Months after a workplace misconduct case against him ended in a mistrial, Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer now wants the county to foot his $325,000 attorney bill.

Kramer, who kept his job as assessor after a jury could not reach a consensus over misconduct allegations, contends in a legal claim filed last March that the county’s former top administrator promised to pay his legal fees ahead of his civil trial. County staff and the Board of Supervisors have since refused to cover his legal costs, he says in the claim.

Kramer also accuses the supervisors and a civil grand jury of launching a “malicious prosecution” that disregarded potential name-clearing evidence in his favor. He says the Board of Supervisors interfered in his case because of a “prospective economic advantage” of not having to pay his salary if he were found guilty in a trial and removed from office.

The supervisors will discuss Kramer’s legal claim in closed session during the board’s meeting Tuesday. In an email, the county counsel declined to comment for this story.

Kramer’s claim is the latest episode in a drawn-out legal saga involving allegations that he made sexual and racist comments to employees in the assessor’s office.

The 70-year-old assessor was accused of using an ethnic slur while referring to an employee and making a racist comment about Mexican people in the workplace. He was also accused of bragging to employees about his own sexual experiences, commenting on an employee’s appearance and attempting to flirt with others who worked for him.

It was not the first time Kramer faced these kinds of accusations: Contra Costa County paid a $1 million settlement in 2009 to a former employee who alleged similar inappropriate behavior by Kramer. Separate findings by a civil grand jury and a county-hired independent investigator that he had indeed harassed his employees led to a civil trial last year that would have seen Kramer removed from office. But jurors could not unanimously agree that Kramer’s alleged comments and acts went far enough to create a hostile work environment for his employees.

Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge John Cope declared a mistrial in the case, and months later the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office said it would not seek to retry Kramer.

Contra Costa County Assessor Gus Kramer, left, and his attorney Mike Rains look on as they walk in the AF Bray Courthouse Building for a hearing related to the grand jury accusations against him in Martinez in July 2019. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group) (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)

Now the assessor is making his own allegations against the county, starting with a January 2020 conversation he says he had with former county administrator David Twa, who left his position late last year.

“Mr. Twa stated that if Mr. Kramer was successful in defending against the Accusation and retained his position following a trial, ‘I will get the County to pay your legal fees,’ ” Kramer alleges in his claim.

Kramer contends the county has since refused to pay those fees, amounting to “fraudulent representations” on Twa’s part.

The claim alludes to other allegations in a motion Kramer filed last year to get his case dismissed. In that 48-page motion, Kramer outlines a laundry list of rebuttals to his accusers. He alleges that the civil grand jury foreperson did not vet Kramer’s accusers and even had them rehearse their allegations to appear more convincing.

Kramer also accuses the foreperson of disregarding contradictory statements made by a witness that the assessor says would have exonerated him. And he suggests the foreperson carried out these actions as an “agent” of the Board of Supervisors, which sought to remove him from office to avoid paying his salary.

“There is an absence of actual ‘evidence’ that even a few of the allegations against Kramer might be true,” the motion alleges, “and for those remaining which may or may not be true, there is an overwhelming body of clear and consistent law that none of Kramer’s alleged actions meet the definition of ‘severe and pervasive’ harassment of his accusers.”

Kramer has served continuous four-year terms since first winning office in 1994. Last year, he also unsuccessfully ran for the District 5 supervisor’s seat, losing in a runoff election to incumbent Federal Glover.

Staff writer Annie Sciacca contributed to this story.