She said she’s finally ready to tell her side of the story.

He said it’s part of a smear campaign against him.

She said no one asked her to come forward and that he should have been fired.

He said a 13-page report filed by the Ventura County Civil Service Commission more than a year ago found him innocent of any wrongdoings and that she’s putting her “spin” on the story.

“She” is Diane White, the former secretary whose 2008 testimony supported Sheriff Bob Brooks’ decision to fire Geoff Dean.

“He” is Cmdr. Geoff Dean, a candidate in a contentious election for Ventura County Sheriff whose opponent is Chief Dep. Dennis Carpenter—the candidate backed by Brooks.

Carpenter wouldn’t comment on the situation.

At the heart of the he-said, shesaid dispute is a computer database that Dean asked White about in 2008 when she was a secretary in the sheriff’s office and he was a chief deputy with plans to run for sheriff.

The database kept by the sheriff’s office contained “information on campaign donors as well as those who could be expected to make nonmonetary but very valuable contributions to the success of a campaign,” according to the civil commission’s final report.

Brooks said he fired Dean because by asking White for the database, the chief deputy had violated an earlier order to the staff to not engage in “campaigning or politicking.”

Dean took his case before a civil service commission.

Dean admitted he’d asked about the size of the database for political reasons but didn’t ask for a copy. He returned to the sheriff’s department as a commander—a lesser rank—after the civil service commission ruled that, although Dean was guilty of insubordination, Brooks’ decision to fire him was “clearly excessive.” Dean has since said the incident cemented his decision to run for sheriff.

White said her involvement in the investigation forced her into early retirement because of stress caused by interoffice gossip about her after she told the sheriff about Dean asking about the database. “There were a lot of rumors circulating about my integrity,” she said.

In a two-page e-mail White sent to the Camarillo Acorn late last week, she detailed how Dean asked her about the database when the two were alone in the sheriff’s office.

She said that before Dean asked about the database he had motioned to the offices of the sheriff and undersheriff, inquiring if they were at their desks. She told him they weren’t.

In her e-mail, the former secretary contends that even though Dean didn’t explicitly ask for the database, he “essentially attempted to ‘steal’ the file by going to me instead of the sheriff to obtain it.”

“He didn’t come right out and say, ‘Give me the database,’ but the implications were that he wanted the database,” said White during a recent interview.

She questioned Dean’s integrity, saying he “took advantage of his and my friendship when I was at the lowest point in my life.”

White said that at the time she was facing a personal problem and “my self-confidence was gone, and my trust in other people had been broken completely.”

White, a grandmother with two grown children, recently moved to Pasadena to obtain her master’s in divinity studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. A Colorado native, she had lived in Ventura County for 30 years and had worked for the sheriff’s department since 1994.

“I’m sorry she felt that way, but I would hate for someone’s integrity or their guilt to be based on someone else’s personal opinion or emotions and not the facts,” said Dean after reading White’s e-mail.

Dean said the former secretary and he were friends and that she had taken “literary freehand” in her description of the events.

He said it wasn’t uncommon for him to ask if the sheriff or the undersheriff were in the office when he entered. White testified, Dean said, that although he asked about the size of the database he never asked for it. “If you walk into a bank and ask how much money is in there, does that mean you’re going to rob the bank?” Dean said. “I think it’s a stretch. I think it’s a real stretch.”

He pointed to the witness testimonies during the five-day civil service hearing and said the allegations that he attempted to steal the database were untrue.

In its final report, the civil service commission said “the broad spectrum of respected, high-ranking people from across the law enforcement community” that spoke as character witnesses for Dean, “painted an extremely positive picture of (Dean) as a dedicated, conscientious individual of sterling character.”

Sheriff Bob Brooks said he still contends that Dean did try to steal the file and said Dean admitted it to him in two subsequent private meetings between the two men.

“There’s no rationale to find out about (the database) unless you plan on getting it,” Brooks said.

He was poised, Brooks said, to give Dean the database before he learned of the conversation between Dean and White.

“That’s when I was notified of his attempts to steal the database and basically steal the election, which brought up the character issue that I could not avoid,” Brooks said.

Larry Carpenter, who held the sheriff’s post for six years before Brooks, said the information on the database was frequently used by the command staff for contact information. “Any chief deputy could have walked in and said I need a phone number for this person or that person, and they could have access to it,” said Carpenter, who recently announced his endorsement of Dean. “Anybody with legitimate needs to locate individual people for business purposes had access to it.”

Carpenter isn’t related to Dennis Carpenter.

Dean questioned the timing of White’s allegations and said he believes it was instigated by his opponent’s campaign.

White is listed on Dennis Carpenter’s campaign website as a supporter; she said she decided to come forward in the midst of the contentious election because she was “standing up” for herself and wanted voters to know the whole story. “I’m not sure I’d tell (voters) who to vote for, but I would say look at the integrity and the characteristics and the history of the candidates. That’s one reason I felt I needed to write this letter. Integrity is a huge thing.”

What would she say to Dean if she passed him on the street?

“I think I would ask him to just say exactly what happened and that I forgive him,” she said.

“There were only two of us in the room, so there’s only two of us who know exactly what happened,” White said.