Kenneth Rasmuson was the first convicted child molester designated as a “sexually violent predator” to be conditionally released into Santa Barbara County. On March 20, he moved onto a 21-acre property northeast of Lompoc.
Neighbors there say he isn’t welcome in their community, and county officials are up in arms over what to do with him.
“It’s a horrible idea,” said Santa Barbara County Supervisor Joni Gray. “I just can’t believe that we have to tolerate this kind of situation. I’d advise everybody to just stay with your kids. Make sure that you stay a million miles away from there, and if you see the slightest thing, give the sheriff a call and maybe we can corral this through a neighborhood effort.”
According to his neighbors, Rasmuson is living in a mobile home on the fenced acreage while repairs are being made to the house he’s renting on the land. Though the 47-year-old is employed, Rasmuson is still paying the state back for previous care and financial support, meaning taxpayers are also footing the $4,500 monthly rent on the $1.5 million property. In addition, according to the state’s Department of Mental Health, there’s an $800 daily expense for the court-ordered security detail assigned to protect him—for his safety and that of his neighbors.
Radio host Andy Caldwell, who’s discussed the topic on his local talk show and spoke to a relative of one of Rasmuson’s victims, said the fact that taxpayers are responsible for about $30,000 per month from the state’s general fund to support the twice-convicted Rasmuson adds insult to injury.
“It’s an utter outrage,” Caldwell said. The system is a complete failure. This guy should not be living on Earth, as a far as I’m concerned, and he certainly should not be living in a free society.”
Rasmuson won his freedom when the state’s Second District Court of Appeals ordered his conditional release from Atascadero State Hospital in 2007. Under the terms of release set forth in “Jessica’s Law,” Rasmuson is required be monitored by Global Positioning Satellite at all times and must live more than 2,000 feet away from a school or park where children congregate.
He registered in the county as a transient for more than a year while the state’s Department of Mental Health and provider Liberty Healthcare scoured through more than a thousand Craigslist and classified ads to find a Jessica’s Law-compliant location with a landlord who would agree to rent to Rasmuson, according to department spokeswoman Nancy Kincaid.
Kincaid said the agency was running out of time before the courts would release Rasmuson into the county without conditions. To avoid that scenario, they settled on the rural property at 2020 Cebada Canyon Road owned by a Santa Barbara resident.
Kincaid says the setup at least allows the agency to keep Rasmuson under close watch.
“People say this is so expensive, but you have to ask, ‘What price do you put on the safety of one child?’” Kincaid said. “If it’s $2,000 a day and he has no more victims, is it worth it? If you’ve read his criminal history, you know what his victim past has been.”
Rasmuson’s first conviction for child molestation came in 1981 when a Santa Barbara court found him guilty of raping an 11-year-old boy. He was sentenced to state prison and conditionally released in 1985. In 1987, Rasmuson was arrested again, this time for the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 3-year-old child, who was reportedly later found naked and abandoned in the Los Angeles foothills. Rasmuson was handed a 17-year sentence and served nine years before the state parole board granted his release to Atascadero State Hospital under terms of the California’s Sexually Violent Predator Act—the legislation allows for the possibility of indefinite detention in mental facilities for people convicted of forcible sexual assault or child molestation, according to information available on the California Health and Human Services website.
On Dec. 14, 2004, Rasmuson filed a request for conditional release from Atascadero. The case went to trial at Los Angeles County Superior Court in 2005. In a letter to the court, as stated in an appellate court opinion on the ruling, Dr. David Fennell, the acting medical director at Atascadero State Hospital, wrote that pedophilia would be a lifelong problem for Rasmuson but that his condition had improved to the point that he would be unlikely to engage in sexually violent criminal behavior upon his release with supervision and treatment.
Superior Court Judge Gus Gomez denied the petition anyway, finding that Rasmuson failed to meet the burden of proving that he was no longer a risk to re-offend, according to court documents.
Rasmuson appealed the verdict. According to the court’s published opinion, Rasmuson admitted to a psychologist of his involvement in at least 10 molestations since he was 18 years old. Despite that, the state Court of Appeals overturned Judge Gomez’s denial of Rasmuson’s petition.
On Nov. 13, 2007, justices Roger Boren, Kathryn Doi Todd, and Victoria Chavez concluded that prosecutors failed to present enough evidence to support their contention that Rasmuson would likely re-offend if conditionally released, stating in the court’s opinion that to deny his petition “was tantamount to concluding that no [sexually violent predator] who has ever committed a prior sexual offense, regardless of how long ago it occurred, can be conditionally released. Such a conclusion would present serious Constitutional issues.”
The court ordered Rasmuson released from Atascadero State Hospital into Santa Barbara County, his last reported county of residence.
The Department of Mental Health and Liberty Healthcare are charged with implementing any court orders related to Rasmuson’s conditional release program. Rasmuson is required to take anti-androgens—drugs that cause chemical castration—in addition to the supervised watch by guards employed by Sunset Security. He’s required to wear a GPS-equipped bracelet at all times and submit to random drug tests, lie-detector tests, and unscheduled home visits and searches by the department. He’s also barred from obtaining a driver’s license and must be escorted anywhere on or off his property.
Even so, the precautions have done little to soothe the fears of Rasmuson’s neighbors.
“It’s extremely concerning,” said neighbor Jon Ohlgren. “I don’t care how good the guards are. We are subject to a very risky experiment.” Court documents include a forensic doctor’s opinion that Rasmuson had a 10 to 20 percent chance of re-offending.
Recent events have given both neighbors and authorities reason to be on edge.
On March 24, just days after the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department notified local residents per “Megan’s Law” requirements that a registered sex offender had moved to the area, deputies responded to a report from Rasmuson’s guard that he’d heard gunfire on the property and that the bumper of his security vehicle had been hit by a bullet.
Authorities reported questioning neighbor Elias Limon, who told them he’d been out on his grounds hunting squirrels. He was cited for unlawful discharge of a weapon, and the guard was left shaken.
Following the incident, the Department of Mental Health added a second security guard for added protection, who was employed for a week at an extra $400 daily expense.
According to Kincaid, how long security detail will be assigned to Rasmuson depends on how well he complies with the terms of his release. In Rasmuson’s case, she said, guards would probably be required for a longer period of time than usual because of the shooting incident and threats from neighbors.
While no direct violence against Rasmuson has been reported, neighbors are hoping to go through legal means to run him out of town.
Ohlgren is asking the county Board of Supervisors to declare the nearby La Purisima Golf Course a “youth-serving facility.” He says the course’s fairways are in plain view of Rasmuson’s home and are frequented by local youth teams and children—a violation of Jessica’s Law conditions, in his estimation.
“Through this process we’ve uncovered an oversight,” Ohlgren said. “The golf course has school activities occurring on it. It is a de facto school ground.”
Supervisor Gray, who says she’s fielded calls from residents fearing their children might be Rasmuson’s next victims, is taking up Ohlgren’s cause. She said she plans to meet with neighbors and work with County Counsel Dennis Marshall to get the golf course designated as a place where children congregate.
“We’re going to try to help them and get something done,” Gray said. “It’s a very negative situation.”
Marshall said the county is currently researching into how broad the legal definitions of Jessica’s Law are and what authority the board has to declare such areas as youth-serving.
If that approach fails, Ohlgren said his next course of action will be to address the problem as a land-use issue and try to get Rasmuson’s property defined as a house of rehabilitation, requiring a conditional-use permit.
He said county officials can go a step further in identifying places where children congregate besides schools and bus stops.
“We need to be using those tools,” Ohlgren said. “The county needs to do something to protect children in unincorporated areas.”
Contact Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 16-23, 2009.