Graceful Exit for Duffy? Vote Is Still Out : Politics: Jim Roache may find the going rough as he tries to take the reins from the sheriff, who once predicted a period of ‘malicious obedience’ if Roache were elected.

Several weeks before Tuesday’s election, Sheriff John Duffy weighed the possibility of reform candidate Jim Roache replacing him.

Duffy described a period of “malicious obedience” within the department, whereby the rank-and-file would do what was asked of them and nothing more.

“You’ll be left with 2,300 Civil Service employees with a tenured right to be in the department who don’t want to be led by him,” Duffy said. “That’s not serving the public well.”

Now Roache is sheriff-elect, and many somber deputies who staunchly supported Jack Drown are trying to make peace with their sheriff-to-be.

Duffy is another matter. The morning after Tuesday’s election, Duffy flew to Hawaii for a criminal-intelligence conference. A spokesman said he would not be back in the office until next Tuesday.

Nobody knows just how Duffy will react once he contemplates Roache taking over the department he has tightly controlled for the past 20 years. Some have speculated that Duffy will spend his last days making a series of promotions, transfers and other decisions right up until noon on Jan. 7, when Roache is sworn in.

Or at the very least, they say, Duffy might make it difficult for Roache to move in early and get started.

“The worst he can do is not provide Jim the access he needs and the ability to be part and parcel of the decision-making process,” said Assistant Sheriff Jack Drown, whom Roache defeated Tuesday by nearly 60,000 votes. “I don’t think he’ll go out of his way to help, but he’s not going to go out of his way to subvert anything.”

“I think Duffy will go out with the throttle full speed ahead,” said Everett Bobbitt, an attorney who represents sheriff’s deputies and has been tapped as a member of Roache’s transition team. “In what direction he’ll go, it’s hard to say, but he’ll bear watching.”

Roache said he will ask Duffy next week for a face-to-face meeting, at which he will try to make amends.

“It’s going to be me asking him for his assistance in making this transition smooth and making sure operations continue unabated,” Roache said. “I want him to know that, in the best interests of the department, we both have an obligation to do the right thing.”

It is important for him to have his staff in place on Jan. 7, Roache said, and, to do that, he needs to have access to budgets, flow charts, manpower levels and other documents.

Duffy made it clear in earlier interviews with The Times that he did not consider Roache qualified. He said it was impossible for any captain to take over as sheriff after skipping three levels of command.

The very best captain of the 17 he had couldn’t do it, Duffy said, and Roache was ranked “in the lower third.”

“If he is elected, he is not competent to run this department,” Duffy said. “He has no relationship with the (Board of Supervisors) offices. He’s never had anything to do with the budget process. He’s never been in our weekly executive management team meetings. He’s never formed policy, nor has he suggested one policy change.”

Duffy said it would be a terrible mistake for Roache to fire Drown, two other assistant sheriffs and the undersheriff, because those administrators have the most experience running the department. All four serve at the sheriff’s pleasure and are not protected by Civil Service regulations.

Roache said he doesn’t know who will go and who will stay, but made it clear during the campaign that he intended to make a clean sweep. Sheriff’s Capt. Maudie Bobbitt, who is also on Roache’s transition team, has been mentioned for Drown’s job. Poway Capt. Jay La Suer, who won a seat Tuesday on the La Mesa City Council, has been mentioned as undersheriff.

Assistant Sheriff Richard Reed, who has been with the agency nearly 22 years and is likely to be replaced, said Thursday that it would be a mistake to promote out of the department’s chain of command.

“He’ll throw John Duffy’s good old boys out and bring in his own good old boys,” Reed said. “Everyone who has been promoted here has done so within the sworn ranks. Everyone in our administration has held every rank within our chain of command. Bringing people in from the outside would be a radical departure from what we’ve been doing.”

Reed said he is not sure what tone the department will take in the last two months of Duffy’s administration. He said Duffy blames Roache for many of the press leaks that have occurred over the past year, particularly information about whether Duffy used public funds for a home-security system or other details of Duffy’s house.

Drown said there is little Duffy can do. Although there were rumors of Duffy making last-minute promotions, there are few vacant positions within the officers’ ranks.

Bobbitt said there are no openings for captain or lieutenant and no current list of applicants who have passed the sergeant’s test from which to choose. Bobbitt said Roache could negate any transfers Duffy might make.

“What could he do?” Drown asked. “In the grand scheme of things, he couldn’t put too much sugar in the gas tank. We’re pretty bound by the constraints of bureaucracy.”

In his final 60 days, Duffy still must deal with the Board of Supervisors. The board is planning to take legal action today against Duffy over his creation of a separate bank account established to bypass their spending authority over hundreds of thousands of dollars the department has seized in drug raids.

County counsel is expected to seek a court order to make Duffy immediately list all deposits in the secret account, return the full amount, including the $70,000 he spent on his legal fees, and prevent him from setting up any new secret accounts, said county spokesman Bob Lerner.

Duffy has maintained that the money is his to spend because it comes from the federal government. He said the county has no jurisdiction over the funds. County supervisors, who say Duffy has violated a county ordinance by refusing to turn over the money and for spending it without county approval, want Duffy to return the money, estimated at over $300,000.

Many have suggested that a wave of negative publicity about Duffy last month helped Roache beat Drown and tarnished Duffy’s 20-year career.