Sex offender is free -- and reduced to a riverbed

By Catherine Saillant
Los Angeles Times

Habitual sex offender Ross Wollschlager has bounced from one Ventura County hotel to another in the weeks since his release from a state mental hospital, getting ejected each time the owner learned of his identity.

Publicity about his release has made it impossible for the 44-year-old convicted rapist to find a rural landlord willing to give him a place to live.

After seven evictions, Liberty Healthcare Corp., a San Diego company hired by the state to help Wollschlager get resettled, gave him a tent and he began living in the Ventura River bottom. He is overseen by a taxpayer-funded security guard who stays in a vehicle nearby.

Wollschlager's predicament has reignited debate on whether strict new laws governing sex offenders are making it harder to monitor them.

Jessica's Law, passed overwhelmingly by voters last fall, bars Wollschlager from living within 2,000 feet -- about half a mile -- of any school, park or beach. He wears two monitoring devices on his ankle and shuttles between his campsite and a friend's home in Oxnard each day.

"It's harder to protect the public when he is homeless," said Margaret Coyle, a county prosecutor who opposed Wollschlager's release. "Were he in a condo or an apartment, we could supervise him more effectively."

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