SUTTER CREEK, Calif. — Paul and Marcia Urenda are outraged that their quiet Sutter Creek retirement home could soon have a sexually violent predator as their new neighbor.
"Cell service is really sketchy up here. There's teenage girls that live up in that house back up there. My granddaughter spends part of the summer here. She's 10. Can't have her here," said Marcia Urenda.
66-year-old William Stephenson is the man the California Department of State Hospitals is considering placing next to the Urenda's property on Shake Ridge Road.
According to the online legal research tool Casetext.com., Stephenson has a long criminal history, including convictions of sexually assaulting two women at a nude beach while threatening them with a knife.
He was sentenced to 31 years in state prison, but has been committed to a state hospital since 2009.
While there are a thousands of "sex offenders" released into communities in California, it's different for so-called "sexually violent predators."
When checking the Megan's Law website for the number of sexually violent predators placed back into society in the Sacramento-Stockton area, it's extremely low.
By ABC10's count, for example, in Amador County, there are none. In San Joaquin County, there is only one. In Sacramento County, there are four.
So how is a sexually violent predator placed into a community? According to the California Department of State Hospitals, it is done through a "Conditional Release Program," or CONREP.
"The court then orders CONREP to locate a residence for the patient in their county of domicile (that is, where they will live), which is legally determined by the court. The county of domicile is typically the same county that handles the patient's SVP or sexually violent predator commitment proceeding," according to a fact sheet from the California Department of State Hospitals.
In Stephenson's case, it's Placer County. But then, there is this: "Placements to other counties are rare and only occur in extraordinary circumstances, when court ordered."
"Yet they somehow chose Amador County, where we are one of the smallest, have the less resources or the ability to actually to cope with something under this magnitude," said Amador County Sheriff-Coroner Gary Redman, who vehemently opposes Stephenson moving to Amador County.
According to the California Department of State Hospitals, only about 5% of sexually violent predators have been given conditional release. The department says "to date, no participant has perpetrated a sexual contact offense in SVP CONREP."
Karen Warburton put up banners warning the public of William Stephenson in the front of her property facing Shake Ridge Road. She lives about 100 feet or so from where Stephenson could reside.
"If this individual were to come and go, we would have to deal with them being in our front yard all the time," said Warburton.
According to Amador County Sheriff Gary Redman, a court hearing set for April 4 has been moved to April 5 in Placer County Superior Court in Auburn.
Redman says the hearing now is only to "vacate" or cancel Stephenson's placement hearing because of "procedural issues" involving the state hospital system.
He says the state is supposed to give his department a 30-day notice for the new placement hearing court date.
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