SAN FRANCISCO – California has decided to move Brian DeVries,
the first sexually violent predator to graduate from the state’s
post-prison treatment program for its most dangerous offenders, to
a trailer on the perimeter of the state prison in Soledad, a state
official said Wednesday.
”
He will live in a trailer in Monterey County, on land that is
under the operation and control of the Department of
Corrections,
”
said Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the Department of Mental
Health, which has struggled for months to find an acceptable place
for DeVries.
SAN FRANCISCO – California has decided to move Brian DeVries, the first sexually violent predator to graduate from the state’s post-prison treatment program for its most dangerous offenders, to a trailer on the perimeter of the state prison in Soledad, a state official said Wednesday.
“He will live in a trailer in Monterey County, on land that is under the operation and control of the Department of Corrections,” said Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the Department of Mental Health, which has struggled for months to find an acceptable place for DeVries.
Reached by phone at the Atascadero State Hospital where has been held since 1997 along with about 400 other rapists and child molesters, DeVries said he was satisfied with the site.
Romero said the location – in a trailer at the edge of a training facility at the Salinas Valley State Prison – was temporary. “We still want to be able to look for something a little more permanent than a trailer, but definitely in California,” she said, ruling out any move to Washington state, where his family lives.
DeVries will have to register as a sex offender with the Monterey County sheriff’s office within five days of the move, so that the Megan’s Law database will be updated. He’ll also need to get a driver’s license, Romero said, adding, “We’re told maybe his family will help him with a car.”
As for his outpatient treatment, that will be in San Jose, and a case manager will drive him there beginning next week, until he gets his own transportation, she said.
The cost of continuing to treat and monitor DeVries outside Atascadero – including his housing, tracking by global positioning satellite, extensive therapy and random searches of his home and vehicle, will be about $180,000 a year, she said.
DeVries, a 44-year-old child molester who had himself surgically castrated and has promised to live a “kid-free” life, is the first to graduate from the program, and one of few even to accept the treatment regime inside the Atascadero hospital.
Romero said DeVries will be released as scheduled by Sunday, confirming details of a process that has been shrouded in secrecy as officials try to avoid the community outrage that often arises when sex offenders move into a neighborhood.
An earlier effort by the Department of Mental Health to house DeVries in Santa Clara County fell apart after a newspaper reported the address and neighbors mobilized against the plan. Romero had said she couldn’t answer questions about the move, “on pain of death.”
A Santa Clara County judge ordered the department to find suitable housing for DeVries in California or release him by Aug. 10 to his father in Washington state, where the family owns property in rural Mason County – an alternative that both state’s governors publicly objected to.
California and Washington officials urged Judge Robert Baines to reconsider, arguing that sending DeVries to Washington would leave him unencumbered by the restrictions California plans to impose on him.
The judge ordered DeVries released in February, but it’s been delayed because state officials said they could not find a suitable place for him.
When he is released, DeVries will become the first California sex predator freed after completing the treatment program, which tries to rehabilitate the state’s most dangerous, repeat sex offenders under a law that took effect in 1996. Most are refusing treatment and have little chance of being released.
DeVries molested at least nine young boys in New Hampshire, Florida and San Jose before serving his last term in prison. To help demonstrate his intent to reform, DeVries was castrated in August 2001. DeVries said the surgery took away his ability to get sexually aroused.
