Suspect out on bail; landlord denies he's back in Menifee

The 21-year-old man accused of sexual molestation in La Ladera Park Tuesday was released on bail Thursday night, but the owner of the group home where he lived says the suspect has not returned to that residence and is not welcome there.

"Hell no," said Daniel Blas when asked Friday whether the suspect, Roland Riddell, was back at the residence in the 29600 block of Cool Meadow Drive, about a block from the park. "I just learned today that he is out on bail, and there's no way he's coming back to that home."

Riddell faces a felony charge of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and an additional misdemenaor charge. He has a June 22 court date at the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta. He was arrested by police Tuesday night after a group of men chased him into a nearby neighborhood in response to a report of the sexual assault.

Riddell's bail was set at $55,000. Blas said he assumes Riddell's mother posted bail and that the suspect is staying at her residence, which he believes is in the Pomona or La Verne area. As reported in a Menifee 24/7 story Thursday, Blas said Riddell was approved to move into the Cool Meadow home on Tuesday after he was released from Aurora Charter Oak Behavioral Health facility in Covina.

"Yesterday his mother kept bugging me to come and pick up his medication," Blas said. "I told her she needed to come pick up all his stuff because he wasn't coming back. She said no, she just wanted his meds."

Blas said the mother did not come to the house and that Riddell's belongings are still there.

Although there has been no indication that Riddell has returned to the neighborhood surrounding La Ladera Park, Sheriff's Cpt. Greg Fellows told Menifee 24/7 he assigned extra patrols for the park and the neighborhood. No incidents were reported.

Blas also responded Friday to facts reported in Menifee 24/7 that police had made four visits to the home in the last year that were criminal in nature. Blas, who does not live at the home but owns several group homes, said on Thursday he had no knowledge of any such calls.

"One of those was internal -- two residents fighting inside the house," Blas said Friday. "No one in the neighborhood was involved in any way. Both of those individuals are no longer there. I kicked them out."

Blas claimed to have no prior knowledge of a Jan. 8 incident in which local resident Allie Munoz said her 17-year-old son and a 16-year-old friend were shown pornography on a tablet by another of the residents. Munoz, who said it was an older man and not Riddell, said police came to her home to take a report and went to the man's home and knocked on the door, but she did not know if contact was made there because it was late at night.

"I just learned of that today when police called me and read me part of your article," Blas said. "That man still lives there, but he'll be leaving. I'm giving him 30 days' notice.

"I've been in this business a long time, and this kind of thing has never happened to us."