The building is still vacant and unsafe to occupy, but one element of the odyssey behind the city of San Diego’s lease and subsequent purchase of 101 Ash St. has ended for one of the journalists who exposed the scandal. Dorian Hargrove, the former NBC 7 television producer who co-wrote some of the most explosive news articles about the city’s troubled acquisition of the longtime Sempra Energy headquarters, has settled his lawsuit against the television company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Hargrove attorney Marlea Dell’Anno said it vindicates her client, who was suspended and then fired after NBC 7 retracted one report. “This settlement transcends a typical employment dispute,” Dell’Anno said. “It exposes $200 million in taxpayer fraud and a local news station’s deliberate silencing of a key investigative reporter.” NBCUniversal, which defended the lawsuit for two years, did not respond to a request for comment. A similar complaint Hargrove filed against the city was dismissed from federal court. Hargrove and colleague Tom Jones were suspended after a September 2020 story based on an allegation contained in a leaked version of a report of an investigation into the city’s 101 Ash St. deal. The allegation that became known as “Footnote 15” asserted, among other things, that City Attorney Mara Elliott intervened in an investigation into the lease by shielding then-mayoral candidate Todd Gloria from being interviewed. It roiled both the mayor’s race and Elliott’s re-election campaign. Both Gloria and Elliott denied the allegations and criticized NBC 7’s story publicly. The law firm that authored the report denied that it was included in their legal analysis, and the news station retracted its story, citing “missteps in our reporting” and saying the footnote had been fabricated. Hargrove and Jones were subsequently placed on leave and prohibited from further reporting on 101 Ash St. Both subsequently left the news organization. Dell’Anno said her client is pleased with the settlement but more information should come out. “While this chapter closes, the full 101 Ash St. story remains to be told,” she said. In 2021, a city audit found that former Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s administration had withheld information from the City Council, misrepresented the property and failed to conduct proper due diligence, and that the city attorney had not consistently documented or communicated the legal risks of that deal and others. The following year, on Gloria’s recommendation, the city bought out the 20-year lease on the building for more than $86 million, not including some $50 million the city paid for rent and upgrades before the building was closed as a result of repeated asbestos contaminations. The city’s volunteer real estate broker later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge after receiving $9.4 million in fees for his work on the Ash Street lease and another deal. No one else was prosecuted. The building remains unsafe to occupy.