Duffy Reneges on Promise to Punish ‘Rambo Squad’ : Law enforcement: Sheriff had said he would fire or demote errant deputies at El Cajon County Jail.

Contrary to Sheriff John Duffy’s public pronouncements last year that he would fire, demote and suspend deputies found to have abused inmates at the El Cajon jail as part of a so-called “Rambo Squad,” none of those disciplined received worse than a suspension, The Times has learned.

Duffy promised the San Diego County Grand Jury in August that he had taken disciplinary action against 10 deputies, including several high-ranking officers, after an internal investigation confirmed that deputies engaged in “deliberate and cruel harassment . . . to show the inmates who’s running the jails.”

In his report to the Grand Jury that outlined the discipline, Duffy said he found that his deputies and officers violated several policies related to the treatment of prisoners.

“Specific disciplinary actions ordered by me include termination from employment; demotion in rank; 30-day suspension without pay; 10-day suspension without pay; and five-day suspension without pay,” Duffy told the Grand Jury.

“I can’t be specific, but rest assured that I have ordered appropriate discipline for all 10 individuals, including ranking officers,” he said in the report.

Two sources close to the department said Duffy planned to fire some deputies of the so-called “Rambo Squad,” demote a sergeant to deputy, suspend a sergeant and lieutenant for 10 days, suspend another lieutenant for 30 days and suspend a captain for 35 days.

But he changed his mind upon the advice of Undersheriff Richard Sandberg, the No. 2 man in the department, who held hearings with nine of the 10 deputies.

The lieutenant and sergeant served their 10-day suspensions. But each of the deputies accepted a short suspension instead of being fired.

The other sergeant was not demoted but was given a 20-day suspension and the other lieutenant had his 30-day suspension reduced to 20 days. The captain, Maudie Bobbitt, served a 35-day suspension and has taken her case to a county Civil Service Commission hearing, where it is scheduled to be heard later this month.

Interviewed Tuesday, Duffy confirmed that all 10 deputies and officers received no worse than suspensions.

“They all admitted their guilt and entered into what you could call a plea bargain,” Duffy said. “I could have disregarded (the undersheriff’s) recommendations, but I saved the county hundreds of thousands of dollars going through the county’s civil service hearing process.”

He said the punishments were fairly severe.

“A 10-day suspension is pretty substantial, pal,” he said. “Have you ever gone 10 days without pay, medical benefits and insurance?”

Duffy’s attorney, Martin J. Mayer, said Duffy was not trying to mislead the Grand Jury.

“When the sheriff made his statements, he was reacting to preliminary reports he was getting. This was all before (the deputies) had a chance to respond and express what mitigating factors may have occurred,” Mayer said. “They were able to convince the sheriff that, perhaps, his original discipline was too severe.”

Mayer said the punishments were “fair and equitable considering (the deputies’) records, the nature of what was going on and the reasons why these things were going on.”

The incidents at the El Cajon Jail, because they did not include physical beatings of inmates, amounted to no more than “fraternity hazing,” Mayer said. The inmates “were not being hit or abused. They were being hazed,” Mayer said.

Duffy, who has been sheriff since 1971, announced late last year that he would not run again, after press scrutiny of his home security system.

Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache, who is running against Assistant Sheriff Jack Drown to succeed Duffy, said the sheriff “cut deals with deputies. He publicly ranted and raved and said he was going to fire people, and then, once the heat was off, he cut internal deals with people if they wouldn’t take their cases to civil service hearings.”

Duffy did not want Civil Service hearings to occur because he was still considering whether to run for sheriff and was wary of bad publicity, according to Everett Bobbitt, who initially represented the 10 deputies.

“I think Duffy realized that he could not win during Civil Service and, even if he won, it would generate so much bad press that it would be a tremendous liability,” Bobbitt said. Bobbitt is representing his wife, Capt. Maudie Bobbitt, in the last unresolved “Rambo Squad” case.

Mayer said Duffy had no problem with deputies appearing at the Civil Service hearing.

“All (the deputies) would have been testifying to is their own improper conduct,” Mayer said. “There would have been no harm to the sheriff.” Duffy “immediately jumped on the problems with the jail and called for the Grand Jury investigation in the first place,” Mayer said.

J. Phil Franklin, the foreman for the 1989-90 Grand Jury to whom Duffy addressed his August 1989 letter relating the punishments, said he is not surprised by the contradiction.

“This is why we need a civilian review board to follow up on matters in the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “Until you have a civilian review board, you’ll never truly know what’s going on in the department. I certainly didn’t know about this.”

Creation of such a review panel is on the November ballot. If it is approved by the voters, the panel would be established by the Board of Supervisors with broad subpoena powers to investigate all aspects of the Sheriff’s Department.

The 1988-89 Grand Jury investigated jail conditions at the request of Duffy and the Board of Supervisors. In March 1989, the jury harshly criticized the sheriff’s handling of the jails. It concluded that members of a “Rambo Squad”--the media label placed on the deputies involved--were indeed guilty of abuse, including an exercise in which inmates had to lean spread-eagle against a wall until they lost muscle control and having deputies frequently scrape an inmate’s face against a wall.

In addition, the Grand Jury said, deputies would “delight in cruelty to others” when they would squash packets of mustard, catsup and mayonnaise so that the contents would spray into cells and the inmates would be forced to clean the mess.

Although Duffy had predicted that he would be exonerated by the Grand Jury’s report, the panel blamed him for “a lack of leadership” by failing to investigate the jail problems.

“Leadership chose to focus their attention on the personalities of the complainants while ignoring whether or not there was any substance to the complaints,” the report said.

After the Grand Jury’s report, Duffy launched his own internal investigation, drawing many of the same conclusions.

But Duffy was particularly vehement in expressing disgust with the 10 deputies he vowed to discipline, calling their actions “inexcusable, unprofessional and embarrassing to the department.”

In his initial response in March, 1989, to the Grand Jury’s findings, Duffy described the conduct of the “Rambo Squad” and those who helped cover up their actions as “stupid, disgusting and outrageous.”

In that report, Duffy said he had one regret about the Grand Jury’s findings:

“My only disappointment with your report is that the deputies you describe were not indicted or at least publicly named. . . . I assure you that those responsible will be held accountable and will be dealt with severely.”