Suit Accuses Sheriff of ‘Frolicking’ at Substation : Courts: Mother of stabbing victim who died outside facility alleges misconduct by then-Capt. Jim Roache and others. Roache denies being there that night.

A wrongful-death lawsuit filed Monday in Superior Court alleges that San Diego County Sheriff Jim Roache and others “engaged in conduct amounting to frolic” with “certain females” while a dying man cried for help outside the Lemon Grove sheriff’s substation in October.

Neither the suit nor the attorney who filed it provided details of the alleged misconduct, except to claim that “invitations were extended to non-employees . . . who visited with officers and sheriffs on duty.”

Roache, contacted Monday evening, vigorously denied the allegation and said he was at home that night. His spokesman said later that Roache was actually on leave from the Sheriff’s Department at that time, and had been ordered to stay away from all department offices because he was campaigning for sheriff.

Tyron James Mullen, 18, was fatally stabbed Oct. 24 at an apartment complex across the street from the substation, during the time Roache served there as captain. The stabbing occurred about 9:50 p.m. after an argument between Mullen and a resident at the complex.

Mullen was allegedly stabbed by Leonard Johnson, whose trial on a charge of first-degree murder ended in a hung jury and a mistrial. Johnson, who was named as a co-defendant with Roache and the Sheriff’s Department in Monday’s action, will be retried on a charge of voluntary manslaughter later this month.

The mortally injured Mullen made his way to the substation in a vain effort to seek help, said attorney Jeffrey S. Schwartz, who filed the suit on behalf of Mullen’s mother, Nancy Smale.

No dollar figure was cited in the suit, which also names as co-defendants Heritage Security (Johnson’s employer), Hartson Medical Services, the Lemon Grove Fire Department, Life Flight Operations and the state of California.

The suit alleges that the Sheriff’s Department “failed to provide prompt and appropriate medical treatment or obtain prompt and appropriate medical treatment while Mullen was lying in a pool of blood at the Sheriff’s Department’s Lemon Grove substation. Furthermore, at least two calls were necessary to 911 operators before they responded to the scene.”

Roache said: “The incident occurred at 9:50 p.m. I was not working that night. I was at home. I usually left between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.”

Roache said the sheriff’s substation is “not a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week” facility. He said it closes at 5 p.m.

“You could show up at 5:30, and you might find no one there,” Roache said. “Patrol personnel are in and out of the building all the time, but there are times when no one is there.”

Roache refused to comment on any other allegations in the suit, saying the matter has been referred to lawyers for the Sheriff’s Department.

But Dan Greenblat, Roache’s spokesman, said he had checked Roache’s calendar for Oct. 24 and found it “impossible” that Roache could have been involved in the incident.

“He was on an official leave of absence,” Greenblat said. “And then-Sheriff (John) Duffy had officially barred Jim from entering any sheriff’s facility anywhere in the county” because of Roache’s involvement in the sheriff’s race he won in November.

“So this attorney had better get his facts straight before making unfounded allegations,” Greenblat said.

Asked about the suit’s allegation that Roache, as well as other sheriff’s personnel, were “engaged in conduct amounting to frolic,” attorney Schwartz said: “That’s what we’re informed to believe. We have information that he may well have been involved in this frolic.

“We’re aware of his leave of absence, but he was a captain at the time. And, if he was on leave, it was nevertheless his obligation and responsibility to put his substation in capable hands. But, yes, despite the leave, we have information that he very well may have been involved” in the incident at the substation.