SAN JOSE – A judge on Tuesday again ordered that serial child
molester Brian DeVries, likely the first graduate of a
state-mandated sex offender treatment program, be released this
week to live in a trailer on prison grounds in rural Monterey
County.
SAN JOSE – A judge on Tuesday again ordered that serial child molester Brian DeVries, likely the first graduate of a state-mandated sex offender treatment program, be released this week to live in a trailer on prison grounds in rural Monterey County.
Lawyers and residents from a town near the prison urged Santa Clara County Judge Robert Baines to delay the release, but the judge said DeVries must be sent to Soledad by Friday – or he will be released to his father’s custody in Washington state.
Baines said the state program was effective, adding that keeping DeVries in a state hospital may be unconstitutional and that giving Soledad residents more time to prepare for his arrival was unnecessary.
“The program is elaborate and can certainly assure every resident … that Mr. DeVries’ placement will not in any way be a risk to them or their families,” Baines told a courtroom packed with Soledad residents. “The public should feel very safe with Mr. DeVries’ release.”
DeVries, 44, successfully completed the program at Atascadero State Hospital more than a year ago. In February, Baines agreed that DeVries was ready for the program’s final outpatient treatment phase, and ordered the state to find him a home.
DeVries molested at least nine young boys in New Hampshire, Florida and San Jose before serving his last, four-year prison term.
To help demonstrate his intent to reform, DeVries was castrated in August 2001 – a surgery DeVries said took away his ability to become sexually aroused.
“I knew molesting was wrong,” he said in an interview last month. “I wanted to stop doing it.”
DeVries, who has pledged to live a “kid-free” life, was sent to Atascadero after finishing his last prison sentence. He has been locked up in the hospital or in prison since September 1993.
After more than 100 potential landlords refused to house DeVries and facing a court-imposed deadline, the state Department of Mental Health decided to place him in a mobile home outside a medium-security prison about five miles from Soledad, a rural Central Coast community.
City residents objected and a judge delayed DeVries’ release, originally planned for no later than Aug. 10. That judge scheduled a hearing before Baines, who signed the original release order and was vacationing when Soledad’s city attorney asked to push back DeVries’ discharge date yet again.
“All we are asking for is more time,” Kim Colwell of the city attorney’s office told the judge Tuesday. “A short delay so everyone can take a deep breath and figure out what our responsibilities are.”
But Baines said the Department of Mental Health and its contractor, Liberty Healthcare, were responsibility for overseeing DeVries. He also pointed out that, according to the Megan’s Law database, 58 sex offenders already live in the Soledad area and none of them have the “massive supervision” that DeVries will experience.
Before Tuesday’s hearing, about 60 protesters – mostly parents with children – lined up outside the courthouse entrance. Among them was car dealer Miguel Gutierrez, who donated three of his 15-passenger vans to haul neighbors to San Jose.
“We don’t want this guy in our town. This guy is sick,” Gutierrez, 43, said. “He should go to a place in the desert where there’s no kids around.”
California’s sexually violent predator law lets the state lock up repeat sex offenders after they serve prison sentences and force them to undergo treatment until they’re no longer deemed a threat to society. About 400 such offenders are currently locked up at Atascadero.
DeVries is one of three men who have completed the inpatient treatment since the program began in 1996.
Conditions of DeVries’ release
Here are some of the conditions to which serial child molester Brian DeVries. They were agreed to by DeVries, his lawyer, the Department of Mental Health, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office and Judge Robert Baines.
The state has contracted with Liberty Healthcare, which hired a program director who will oversee DeVries’ day-to-day life.
– random searches of DeVries’ home, work and any property
– no overnight visitors without prior approval
– random drug testing
– no travel outside Monterey County without approval from the program director and no travel outside the state without approval from the judge
– no firearms possession
– no hitchhiking or picking up hitchhikers
– no Internet use without prior approval
– no viewing or possessing of any arousing television shows, movies or videotapes
– participation in group and individual therapy
– 24-hour surveillance using Global Positioning Satellite technology
– no contact with minors or visiting areas where children are present
– any “accidental” contact with a child must be immediately reported to the community program director
– no relationship with anyone who has custody of a child
Source: Associated Press
