GILROY
– Depending on whom you talk to in Sacramento, a bill the
governor is expected to sign into law may or may not send convicted
child molester Brian DeVries back to Santa Clara County.
If a county Superior Court judge decides that it does, Gilroy
could be as good a candidate as any other county city for
DeVries.
GILROY – Depending on whom you talk to in Sacramento, a bill the governor is expected to sign into law may or may not send convicted child molester Brian DeVries back to Santa Clara County.
If a county Superior Court judge decides that it does, Gilroy could be as good a candidate as any other county city for DeVries. City police say no one has contacted them about the possibility of moving him here.
DeVries was convicted of molesting an 8-year-old boy in 1994 in San Jose and had been previously convicted in several other states, dating back to 1978. In August 2002, he completed a program for sexual predators at Atascadero State Mental Facility. He was voluntarily castrated as part of his treatment.
The bill would require the state Department of Mental Health, which manages the treatment program, to release the predators who complete it back into the counties where they lived. It would require those counties to work with the state on placing the molesters.
What is ambiguous, however, is whether the bill would retroactively apply to the three men the state has released through the program so far: DeVries, Cary Verse and Patrick Ghilotti. All are from the Bay Area, but only DeVries lived in Santa Clara County at the time of his arrest.
“The bill would apply to Mr. DeVries,” state Mental Health spokesperson Lynda Frost said Tuesday.
Gilroy’s state Assemblyman Simon Salinas, however, said, “That’s an open question.”
Salinas authored the bill, which went to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s desk after passing the Assembly 65-2 Monday. The Senate previously approved it 30-0. The co-author, Sen. Bruce McPherson, R-Santa Cruz, also represents Gilroy.
Salinas’ spokesperson, Emily Ford, said the Assemblyman’s staff assumed the bill would not be retroactive from the time they drafted it last year until last week, when they discovered that they and the Mental Health Department “were on two different pages.”
Ultimately, Salinas and Ford said the decision is up to the Superior Court in Santa Clara County. A judge will decide whether the bill applies to DeVries at the convict’s first annual hearing since his release on Sept. 10 – if Schwarzenegger has signed the bill by then.
Salinas, a Democrat from the city that shares his name, said he personally believes his bill should apply retroactively to DeVries.
DeVries now lives in the Assemblyman’s own Monterey County, in a trailer on the property of Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. Verse lives in a San Jose motel and reportedly wants to move to Merced County, although the bill could return him to Contra Costa County. Ghilotti alone has found a relatively stable living situation, with his wife in Vacaville.
The Assemblyman said his intent in drafting the bill was to prevent the “chaos” of the past year, in which DeVries and Verse were rejected by a long string of landlords and communities who didn’t want them. Morgan Hill was one of the communities that reacted furiously to a proposal to place DeVries there.
“We say we need a fair standard that everyone understands so everyone knows where this individual will go,” Salinas said. “Otherwise you end up with chaos. Frankly, nobody puts out a welcome mat for this individual. That’s understandable, so you need to have a fair standard.”
Otherwise, Salinas said, courts could begin releasing sexual predators unconditionally, as DeVries’ lawyer, Brian Mathews, urged Judge Robert Baines to do last summer in this county.
Last July, Judge Baines ruled that DeVries be allowed to move to rural Washington state, where his father lives. This never happened, but Salinas said he understands that this is still DeVries’ intent.
If it is, Salinas said, “Let him go” – if Washington will take him.
But wouldn’t the Assemblyman’s bill require predators such as DeVries to remain in their counties of residence? Not necessarily, Salinas said. There is some flexibility built into the bill, allowing for a move outside the county under “extraordinary circumstances,” mostly related to the victims of the convicts’ crimes.
Salinas emphasized, however, that those extraordinary circumstances “can’t be community outcry, because no community wants them.”
If DeVries was sent to Gilroy, city police detective Michael Beebe, who manages the city’s sex offender registry when he’s not busy investigating sex crimes, would likely be the one to monitor him.
“I have not had any experience similar to this before, and I don’t know how (county and state agencies) would handle it,” he said.
Salinas’ bill applies only to repeat sexual predators treated for early release through the state Mental Health Department. It would not apply to other offenders registered with police under Megan’s Law.
