San Diego’s NBC 7 News reported on Thursday that Filner will step down by the end of the week after a closed-door city council session, citing “several sources.”ABC 10News reported that Filner will resign if the City Council approved a proposal that came after three days of mediation.

As of Wednesday, 18 women had alleged that Filner harassed them, including his former communications director, now represented by celebrity lawyer Gloria Allred in a lawsuit against the mayor. According to an earlier report in the San Diego Union-Tribune, the negotiations, which were overseen by a federal judge, resulted on Wednesday in a settlement that is expected to have Filner resign while his legal liabilities are covered.

( QUIZ: Do you know Bob Filner?)

The deal will go before the City Council on Friday afternoon, after which details would be made public, officials said. Reports said Filner is expected to speak after the meeting.

If he resigns, a special election would occur within 90 days — but the Union-Tribune noted that campaigning could get under way as early as Saturday.

Filner last month publicly apologized for his behavior but didn’t step down.

“As someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for equality for all people, I am embarrassed to admit that I have failed to fully respect the women who work for me and with me, and that at times I have intimidated them,” he said in July.

He announced he would take a leave of absence to undergo behavioral therapy, which he recently completed.

Allred, who has demanded that Filner resign as part of any settlement, said taxpayers should not incur any of Filner’s legal expenses.

“If the deal requires the city council pay him one dollar, then I, for one, think they should vote against it,” she said in an afternoon press conference. “There should be no payoff for Mayor Filner. It would be a slap in the face to the mayor’s many victims to see him get anything from the city of San Diego. His parting gift should be ‘good riddance’ instead of a handout.”

Allred, appearing with Filner’s ex-fiancee, indicated the lawsuit would continue if a satisfactory deal wasn’t reached.

Filner, a former 10-term congressman, was elected mayor in November to become the first Democrat to hold that position in 20 years.

As harassment allegations cascaded this summer, he fell from grace within his party. The Democratic National Committee is expected to vote on a resolution condemning him on Friday, and prominent Democratic women including DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have called on him to step aside, as have California Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

“Bob, you must resign because you have betrayed the trust of the women you have victimized, the San Diegans you represent and the people you have worked with throughout your decades in public life,” Boxer charged in an open letter to Filner, saying that the allegations have “shaken me to my core.”

Republicans seized on the Filner controversy as the latest battle in the “war on women,” lumping him in with embattled New York mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner, another Democrat who this summer was plagued by his ongoing sexting scandal.

A joint memo signed by communications directors for the National Republican Congressional Committee, Republican Governors Association, Republican State Leadership Committee, Republican National Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee released earlier this summer accused Democrats of “hypocrisy” in their handling of the controversies, saying the party’s leaders should have been more vocal, more quickly in issuing condemnations.

“Democrats’ hypocrisy is appalling,” the memo read. “With their silence, they are sanctioning the actions of Bob Filner and Anthony Weiner and numerous others who have assaulted, harassed, and preyed on women.”