An investigation has cleared Ventura firefighters of wrongdoing for an adult entertainment company's risqué photographs of scantily clad women at a city fire station, Fire Chief Mike Lavery announced Tuesday.

The company's owner, however, disputed several key conclusions made in a summary of the internal investigation released Tuesday.

Lavery said firefighters were forthcoming to their superiors after the photographs were taken April 5.

But he said he would discipline some firefighters for "communication and documentation lapses" for failing to later notify superiors after learning that the photos had surfaced as promotional materials on the Web site of Simply Seductive. The adult entertainment company has a small office across the street from Fire Station No. 2 at Seaward Avenue and Main Street, where the photos were taken.

"These violations will be appropriately dealt with at both the supervisory and line personnel levels," said Lavery, who would not elaborate because of personnel privacy regulations.

The Ventura Police Department launched the investigation April 27 after an anonymous letter was sent to City Hall that included copies of risqué photos from the company's Web site. The Police Department was asked to do the probe to eliminate any conflict of interest.

The photos, also mailed to local media, featured two scantily clad women in several seductive poses in front of fire engines. The photos have since been removed from the Web site.

The investigation concluded that although not specifically invited over by the firefighters, three female models and two photographers walked across the street to the station and asked if the models, who were clothed at the time, could have their photos taken with the fire equipment.

The photography was allowed until the fire crew realized that the women had removed some clothing to take provocative photos, Lavery said.

The owner of Simply Seductive, in a phone interview Tuesday from Chicago, offered a different version of the incident.

The owner, who identified herself as Rhonda but declined to give a last name, said she was taking photographs of the models near a light pole in the alley behind her business when firefighters began whistling at the scantily clad women. Simply Seductive is owned by Rhonda Valona, according to its city business license.

The owner said she went inside to get some business cards and promotional materials, which she gave to the firefighters when she and the models arrived at the fire station moments later.

The models arrived wearing the same skimpy outfits that drew the firefighters' attention, she said. The firefighters watched as the models had their photographs taken, at one point offering to move a firetruck out of the station, she said.

The firefighters later asked a photographer to stop so a license plate could be removed from the front of a fire engine before additional photographs were taken, she said.

"They stood back and enjoyed the photo shoot," the owner said.

She said she didn't want to get the firefighters in trouble but felt the need to "defend her honor" and the legitimacy of her business.

She said both she and one of the models told the police investigator about the whistling. The investigation summary says the firefighters only waved at the models.

"We did not sneak up on them and disrobe at the fire station," the owner said. "We have more class than that."

When told of the owner's comments Tuesday, Lavery said she gave a different version to city investigators.

Lavery said police Lt. John Garner, who handled the investigation, interviewed 17 people and spent more than 100 hours on the probe. He said the interviews corroborated the investigation's conclusions.

"I stand by the investigation," Lavery said. "It's unfortunate she is casting doubt on the validity of the investigation. Her changing her story now is disappointing to me."

The investigation concluded that the women were not invited to the station and never entered farther than a foot or two inside the open main door, Lavery said.

"There was no reason for the investigator to stretch the truth," he said, stressing that the incident did not involve any illegal activity.

The realization that the photos had been posted on Simply Seductive's Web site began to filter through the Fire Department about three weeks after the incident when an employee from a different fire department notified Ventura about them, Lavery said.

"The thing that disappointed me the most was when people knew about the pictures on the Web site and I wasn't notified," he said.