MIAMI (AP) – A newspaper columnist who was fired for taping a conversation with a man hours before he committed suicide in the newspaper’s lobby said he thinks his dismissal was unfair.

The Miami Herald said that the columnist Jim DeFede recorded his telephone conversation with former city commissioner Arthur E. Teele Jr. without permission – a possible violation of state law and the newspaper’s ethical standards.

But DeFede said he should only have been suspended because he told his bosses about the tape on his own.

Teele killed himself last week after speaking several times by phone with DeFede, a longtime acquaintance who described Teele as “very distraught.” Just hours before, the Miami New Times published a report online entitled “Tales of Teele: Sleaze Stories.”

The weekly newspaper’s story was largely based on police reports and detailed Teele’s alleged contacts with drug dealers, reputed gay affairs and the corruption charges he faced.

“He mainly called because he wanted to talk to me about the allegations about his homosexual affair supposedly that a prison inmate was making against him. He was upset by what that was doing, the impact it has having on his son,” DeFede told reporters outside his home.

Teele was convicted in March of threatening a police officer as part of a corruption investigation. Documents had been filed seeking to revoke his probation and send him to jail.

He was also indicted July 14 along with a contractor on federal charges of lying to get more than $20 million in contracts at Miami International Airport that were supposed to go to minority-owned businesses. He pleaded not guilty.

Whether DeFede broke the law by taping the conversation is unclear. Florida law requires consent for the recording of telephone conversations, but a state appeals court ruled that did not apply to business calls.

Miami-Dade County prosecutors were reviewing the case, but no charges had been filed against DeFede yet, state attorney spokesperson Ed Griffith said.