AUBURN – The family of shooting victim Melissa Mendoza is suing the Sabattus man convicted earlier this year of her murder.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Androscoggin County Superior Court against Daniel Roberts and claims Mendoza’s wrongful death in addition to:

• emotional distress;

• conscious pain and suffering;

• loss of consortium;

• loss of comfort, society and companionship;

• pecuniary loss;

• the cost of medical care; and

• burial.

The suit says Mendoza went to Roberts’ home in Sabattus early in the morning of Aug. 15, 2005, “without provocation.” He fatally shot her in the back of the head with a .38 caliber revolver.

Roberts’ actions were done with “actual or implied malice,” the suit claims.

Roberts is serving a 55-year sentence at Maine State Prison following a three-week trial in February. He is appealing both conviction and sentence. He claimed the shooting was self-defense, telling police Mendoza had stolen one of his guns and told him she planned to kill their daughter, Roberts then herself.

His trial attorney, Leonard Sharon, said the conviction was flawed because the jury was selected improperly, and the judge who presided over the trial refused to allow a hearing on whether she was biased based on her earlier work as an “advocate for victims of domestic violence.”

Sharon said the sentence may have been skewed because many of the letters passed along to the judge in the case, including two read in court by the state’s prosecutor, were improper and might have unfairly prejudiced the judge.

Mary Mireles of Tustin, Calif., Mendoza’s mother, brought the suit on behalf of Mendoza’s estate. Roberts and Mendoza have a 4-year-old daughter, Savanna, who now lives with Mendoza’s family in California. Mendoza also had a son, 13, and a daughter, 10, from a previous relationship.

Mireles’ suit was accompanied by a motion to put the case on hold until the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has ruled on Roberts’ appeals.

Last year, while awaiting trial, Roberts sued Mireles and Mendoza’s sister, charging them with “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” He claimed the two women had helped Mendoza to fly Savanna back to California during his custody period. The couple had been embroiled in a bitter custody dispute at the time of the shooting.

Mendoza had countersued Roberts for the same charge.

Both parties later dropped those suits.