Ex-Fire Official Will Not Stand Trial on Charge of Buying Drugs

A judge Thursday granted the former highest-ranking Fire Department official in the San Fernando Valley permission to enroll in a drug treatment program rather than stand trial on a misdemeanor cocaine-buying charge.

Former Assistant Fire Chief James J. Mullen of Thousand Oaks still could be prosecuted if he fails to complete the rehabilitation program, Deputy Los Angeles City Atty. Gary G. Geuss said.

Mullen retired Sept. 30 in the wake of news reports that he had helped a suspected prostitute try to buy drugs from undercover police officers in Van Nuys on Sept. 6 while he was off duty.

Mullen, who spent 31 years with the Los Angeles Fire Department, is charged in Van Nuys Municipal Court with one count of solicitation of another to commit an offense, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Judge Alan Ellis on Thursday accepted a Probation Department recommendation that Mullen be allowed to take part in an open drug treatment program and ordered him to return to court June 15 for a progress report. If Mullen completes the program, the charge will be dismissed, Geuss said.

Mullen was charged on Oct. 2, nearly one month after the woman who was riding with him in his car was arrested while attempting to buy rock cocaine from officers at Sepulveda and Roscoe boulevards, police said.

Police said that the woman, Lisa L. Andrews, 29, of Encino, told investigators that Mullen had picked her up at a nearby corner where she had been working as a prostitute and suggested they buy cocaine.

Although Andrews, who displayed money to the officers, was taken into custody at the scene, Mullen was questioned and released. Police insist that Mullen received no special treatment, because only the person who displays money is usually arrested in such operations.

Prosecutor Geuss said Thursday that Mullen, who has no prior arrests, was eligible for the drug diversion program, but that under state law Andrews was not “because she already was on probation” from a 1990 conviction for battery on a child for abusing her son.

Andrews recently pleaded no contest to a charge of attempting to buy drugs. She was placed on three years probation and ordered to enter a 90-day drug treatment program in a locked facility.