Coral Gables City Manager David Brown is expected to retire by Tuesday, forced out by a police report released this week that accuses him of committing two crimes related to a cover-up of charges on his city-issued credit card.

Prosecutors decided not to pursue the case criminally in August, instead slapping Brown with a civil infraction, for which he paid a fine.

But the report was damaging enough that it prompted one commissioner to consider a move to fire Brown at Tuesday's meeting. Under pressure, Brown is expected to announce his retirement instead.

Commissioner Ralph Cabrera, Brown's fiercest critic, had put an item on the agenda to discuss the report, but he said after meeting with Brown he pulled it from the agenda late Thursday.

''We discussed the item on the agenda, and I agreed to remove it based on his intentions to announce his retirement,'' Cabrera said, adding that he wanted to be fair and did not want to remove the 30-year veteran in public.

``As much as some of the errors he's made have upset me, he's achieved many positive things for the city.''

Brown did not return a call late Thursday, but earlier in the day he insisted he had committed no crime.

The police public corruption bureau found evidence of official misconduct, a third-degree felony, and the misdemeanor of falsifying records, according to the report. Investigators said Brown falsified receipts to back-date when he reimbursed the city for two of the questionable meals he charged.

Police also released wiretap tapes, including one in which Brown gives instructions to a subordinate on how to unstaple and restaple the receipts so they do not appear tampered with.

Brown told The Miami Herald Thursday afternoon that he had not read the report and he felt the matter was closed.

''I did what I was told to do. I was charged with a civil violation. I owned up to it. I apologized. I paid a fine,'' he said.

''I certainly regretted it,'' he added, but insisting he had committed no crime.

NO TRACKS TO HIDE

''There were no tracks to cover up. I did not need to reimburse the money,'' Brown said, denying he did so to save face with the commission and the public.

The case started in March, when The Coral Gables Gazette -- a weekly paper routinely at odds with the city administration -- disclosed that Brown had wined and dined employees, commissioners and others on his city-issued purchasing card, including lavish meals with pricey bottles of Robert Mondavi and Clos du Val at places like the Biltmore Hotel.

When a Gazette columnist asked for the receipts, the report says, Brown told Procurement Supervisor Danilo Benedit to stall so he could insert two back-dated receipts that showed he partially reimbursed the city for two of the meals.

The report says Benedit, fearing he would be used as a scapegoat when Brown told him to insert the back-dated receipts, contacted police and covertly recorded conversations between Brown and himself.

In one of those conversations, Brown told Benedit he was not in trouble and to ``just say what I told you.''

The report also quotes Assistant Finance Director Adolfo Sansores that Brown asked him for two receipts from receipt books without sequence numbers and that the reimbursements were for meals paid for a year and two years earlier.

''If a regular employee would have asked him to back-date a receipt, he would not have done it,'' the report states. ``He only did it as Mr. Brown was the city manager.''

Sansores told police he knew it was illegal and that he told Brown he ''felt uncomfortable.'' Brown's reply: ``It will go away.''

UP TO PROSECUTORS

Joseph Centorino, chief of the public corruption unit at the Miami-Dade state attorney's office, told The Miami Herald on Thursday that while police may have initially thought a felony had been committed, the final decision is always up to prosecutors.

''We make the legal decisions here, and they do the investigations,'' he said.

Centorino said Brown's actions simply didn't rise to the level of a criminal offense.

''What he misrepresented was a date on a reimbursement he didn't have to make in the first place. He was trying to make himself look better,'' he said.

Brown also admitted to prosecutors he shouldn't have done what he did, Centorino said.

Centorino said the charges that police suggested would not have sent Brown to jail.

Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick said Thursday night that he had not read the report or heard the recordings.

''But the police many times disagree with the state attorney's office about who to prosecute, and the state attorney decided there was no criminal act,'' Slesnick said.

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