Roache Names 4 Top Aides, Including a Drown Backer

Asking that the “healing process start today,” Sheriff-elect Jim Roache officially named his four top administrators Friday: two supporters, one officer loyal to his election opponent and a retired assistant sheriff under outgoing Sheriff John Duffy.

In selecting Capt. Jay LaSuer as undersheriff and Capt. Maudie Bobbitt as assistant sheriff, Roache rewarded two captains who supported his candidacy when most of the department had chosen his opponent, Assistant Sheriff Jack Drown.

In picking Cmdr. Mel Nichols, now in charge of jail operations, as his assistant sheriff for administration, Roache called upon a Drown supporter with 27 years in the department who has served in a variety of jobs. Nichols took a day to consider before accepting.

And, although Roache wants to conduct a nationwide search for his assistant sheriff for jails, he chose an interim assistant, Clifford R. Powell, who has spent 32 years with the department. During the three years before he retired in 1987, he was assistant sheriff for jails.

“This team is qualified, savvy and in tune with the need for putting service to the public ahead of all else,” Roache said to supporters and news media outside the county Administration Building.

“Let the healing process start today,” he said. “Let the wheels of constructive change be set in motion.”

Roache’s victory Nov. 2 over Drown proved embarrassing for many of the 1,349 sworn deputies who aggressively supported Drown. After the election, some deputies predicted that the department would become fractious and that Roache might retaliate.

In the weeks that followed, Roache met with members of the Deputy Sheriff’s Assn., the organization that represents most deputies, and asked them for their support. Members of the group said they were anxious to see what kind of sheriff he would make.

LaSuer and Bobbitt both served as captains of the County Jail at El Cajon, which came under a grand jury investigation during 1988 and 1989. After the jury confirmed the existence of a “Rambo Squad” of five deputies who systematically harassed inmates, Duffy disciplined 10 deputies and officers from the jail, including Bobbitt.

Bobbitt’s 35-day suspension was revoked last month by the county’s Civil Service Commission, but Duffy said he had agreed to drop the suspension in order to reopen a civil rights investigation into the role of Bobbitt and other officials who may have overlooked jail abuses.

It is unclear whether Duffy will finish the investigation before he leaves office at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 4.

LaSuer’s appointment has come under attack by Roberto Martinez, a leading Latino activist, who criticized his tenure as captain of the Poway station.

Early last year, sheriff’s deputies there rounded up scores of documented and undocumented migrant workers after a 15-year-old girl’s allegations that she had been raped in Poway.

Although more than 80 workers were detained, charges were filed against six. The charges were later dropped.

Late last year, someone posted a memo on the Poway station’s bulletin board ridiculing Latinos. The memo stayed on the board for about a week. LaSuer denounced the incident at the time.

On Friday, LaSuer said he was off work the day the migrant workers were canvassed.

“I had nothing to do with it,” he said. “I don’t care what race or nationality a person is, I treat everyone the same.” LaSuer said he would be happy to meet with Martinez.

Martinez, the border representative in San Diego for the American Friends Service Committee, the Philadelphia-based social action arm of the Quaker Church, said LaSuer was responsible because he was the top official in the Poway station.

“My problem with LaSuer’s appointment is that I don’t feel he can manage his own,” Martinez said. “He’s in charge of that station, and he allowed those types of sweeps to be made of those people who didn’t have anything to do with anything.”

Martinez said he had received six telephone calls and two letters of complaint, both about LaSuer’s appointment as undersheriff and his election to the La Mesa City Council.

LaSuer, 50, who has been a captain at the Poway station for the past 4 1/2 years, preceded Bobbitt as captain at the El Cajon jail. A member of the Sheriff’s Department for the past 21 years, he spent about three years at the jail and was lieutenant at the sheriff’s regional training academy. He spent 4 1/2 years as a lieutenant and sergeant at a substation in Otay Mesa. He also worked in Lemon Grove and Santee.

LaSuer won the council seat three weeks ago, and said Friday that he can manage both jobs.

Bobbitt, 43, has been with the Sheriff’s Department 21 years and is one of only two female captains in an agency whose sworn officers are 17% female. Bobbitt will become the department’s first female assistant sheriff and one of only two in California, Roache said.

She is captain at the department’s Santee station and was head of the El Cajon jail from 1986 to 1988. She was once a lieutenant in Santee and started the department’s juvenile services unit, which investigates child abuse and other juvenile problems.

Although both LaSuer and Bobbitt supported Roache during the campaign, Roache said “no choices were made for political reasons. They all share my vision and goals and hope” for the future.

Nichols, 50, has been with the department 27 years. He has served in patrol, detentions, specialized investigations and administrative support. He said he does not think switching his allegiance now to Roache will lose him any respect in the department.

“I really had to consider that, but that was then and this is now,” he said. “In fact, Jack Drown was bubbling over when he heard about the appointment. He was very, very supportive.”

Powell, 62, is a jail consultant who often serves as an expert witness in trials about people who die in custody. Powell said he will leave the job in 90 days--he is prohibited by county ordinance as a retired county employee to stay any longer--and primarily was chosen to “hold things together” until a permanent replacement is found.

After naming his administration Friday, Roache also said he has begun to assemble more than 40 community leaders--from bank executives and attorneys to educators and former politicians--as an advisory transition team.

Members of the team will meet in five groups, dealing with operations, finance, community relations, personnel and governmental relations. Roache said he will have members of the department brief each of the groups as to how the agency now works in each of those areas and to suggest changes.