Former Board of Executive Clemency Chairman Jesse Hernandez on Thursday countered allegations of misconduct by saying his resignation was forced and driven by politics and retaliation by his fellow board members for proposing to cut their hours.

Hernandez spoke to the Arizona Capitol Times about a Department of Administration investigative report that portrayed him as a boorish ladies man who gave his girlfriend a promotion and $21,340 a year pay raise even though she wasn’t qualified.

The report substantiated nine of 12 allegations.

Hernandez said he was given the letter of resignation by the governor’s Chief of Staff, Scott Smith, and asked to sign it. He was under the impression he was being punished only for dating a board staffer, which he admitted to.

Hernandez said he was set up. He said his fellow board members were angry that he would allow them to be paid only for the hours they worked. He said they would try to get paid for hours not spent at the office and claim 40 hours and he was planning to cut their hours to 24 hours a week.

“They weren’t working, they were out golfing, at the casinos, doing barbecues,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez’ replacement, Brian Livingston, said board members work 40 or more hours a week preparing and conducting hearings. “Any statement to the contrary is categorically untrue,” Livingston said.

Hernandez said another underlying reason the governor wanted to get rid of him was he clashed with Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan over a citizen’s complaint that the department was not sending paperwork for prisoners to have parole revocation hearings within the legally required time, meaning some prisoners were illegally held behind bars.

“These prisoners don’t even know that,” he said.

Hernandez said he and Ryan signed a written agreement to settle the issue, but not until a major argument between them.

Bill Lamoreaux, DOC spokesman, said late Thursday Ryan was not immediately available to comment.

Hernandez said he has never seen the DOA report and while he knew about the investigation he didn’t know about the report until he saw news stories about it on Wednesday.

DOA director Brian McNeil did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Gov. Jan Brewer’s spokesman, Andrew Wilder, responded to a series of questions with a written statement he issued the day before stating that Brewer welcomed the resignation.

Hernandez denied allegations that he pitted workers against each other, gaped at women and inappropriately engaged former Phoenix Sun Amar’e Stoudemire when his half-brother was before the board for an early release from prison.

The report states that he provided workers with confidential information and urged them to gossip about to cause conflict among themselves.

Hernandez said that’s not true – that he wrote a memo instructing workers not to gossip.

The report also states that he made a habit of staring the bodies of two workers as they walked away from him, which he also denied.

Hernandez said he never got game tickets from Stoudemire or had lunch with him as the report alleges.

“What tickets I did get, the opera, it wasn’t even basketball season,” he said.