AUBURN – Daniel Roberts, the Sabattus man charged with killing Melissa Mendoza, has filed a civil suit against Mendoza’s mother and sister charging them with “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
Roberts was arrested last month and charged with murder. He says he shot Mendoza, the mother of Roberts’ daughter, Savanna, once in the back of her head after she came to his home and threatened to kill him, their daughter and herself.
He claims the shooting was in self defense and in defense of Savanna.
A judge last month ordered that he be held without bail pending his trial on the murder charge that was handed up by a grand jury.
Roberts and Mendoza had been locked in a bitter custody dispute over their child. In July, Mendoza took Savanna for an overnight visit while Roberts had custody.
The two shared custody of Savannah, switching off for six months at a time.
Roberts’ lawsuit claims that Mendoza fled the state with Savanna, returning to her native California. He says Mendoza’s mother, Mary Mireles of Tustin, Calif., and her sister, Tanya Mendoza of Irvine, Calif., “intentionally and actively assisted Melissa Mendoza in the wrongful removal of Savanna” from Maine.
Their actions “were so extreme and outrageous as to exceed all possible bounds of decency and must be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the suit maintains.
“The emotional distress suffered by (Roberts) was so severe that no reasonable person could be expected to endure it,” the suit continues.
Through his lawyer, Leonard Sharon, Roberts asks the court for damages for his emotional distress, punitive damages and compensation for his costs associated with going to California to find and retrieve his daughter.
Mireles said by telephone from Tustin on Thursday afternoon that she’s aware of Roberts’ lawsuit, but wouldn’t comment beyond that.
She said she’s spoken with Evan Smith, a Freeport lawyer, about representing her.
Smith didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Neither did Sharon.
A date for Roberts’ trial on the murder charge hasn’t been set. He’s being held in the Androscoggin County jail.
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