Altadena: February 2008 Archives

Here's what we'll be reporting tomorrow:

Six violent sex offenders living in an Altadena group home will be moved out over the next several days, officials said. The move comes after strong public protests from residents of the Meadows.

I don't know much mor ethan this...but we'll stay on top of this story.

Who would?

Just look at the cast of characters living in the halfway house in the 4400 block of Risinghill:

[BULLET]Ernesto Corona Ayala, 51, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

[BULLET]Gerald Christoph Baca, 56, also convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

[BULLET]Ernest Brian Bradley, 37, convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14 and convicted of using force.

[BULLET]John Fitzgerald Carter, 43, convicted of forcible rape.

[BULLET]Cedric Parker, 47, convicted of forcible rape and sexual battery.

[BULLET]Anthony Raymond Rayas, 44, convicted of sodomy and lewd and lascivious acts with a child under the age of 14.

As many as 150 people who don’t want this group of unsavory criminals in their neighborhood demanded the removal of the halfway home from their quiet neighborhood Tuesday night.

“Please don’t underestimate us,” Latrell Cottele-Moore, a longtime Meadows resident told the crowd. “We will do whatever is necessary to get them out.”

Their pleas received little more than lip service.

A spokesman for state Sen. Jack Scott, D-Pasadena, essentially told the residents there were no easy solutions to the problem.

According to reporter Elise Kleeman, New Beginnings Sober Living, which operates the home, told residents “the matter is being looked into by the company.”

Who knows what that means?

The Sheriff’s Department assured everyone the offenders were all wearing GPS-equipped anklet bracelets.

Translated, that means detectives will know where an offender has been after a crime has been committed.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the bureaucracies and corporations promoting halfway homes for sex offenders can offer little in the way of solutions for a residential neighborhood in an unincorporated portion of Los Angeles County.

What might be surprising though is that clusters of sex offenders are everywhere in the San Gabriel Valley.

Using a simple search of the state’s Megan’s Law Web site, I found groups of these men living together in Azusa, Bassett, Pasadena, Montebello and El Monte. They are everywhere — even Beverly Hills.

In some cases, they are close to schools and churches. In others they live in residential neighborhoods. Plenty live in trailer parks and motels along Garvey Avenue, and Colorado and Whittier boulevards.

Last August, when the state budget crisis was in full swing, there was a possibility that California would stop paying rent for these guys. Then, instead of being housed and sort of monitored, a lot of sex offenders would have been homeless.

Something in our government is broken. You don’t have to look any further than Risinghill Road in Altadena or the Megan’s Law Web site to see it.

These are the guys who are living in a group home in Altadena. All are charged with sex offenses and all are being monitored electronically. This information comes from the California state Megan's Law web-site

Here they are:

Ernesto Corona Ayala, 51
Lewd or lacivious acts with a child under 14

Gerald Christoph Baca, 56

Lewd or lacivious acts with a child under 14

Ernest Brian Bradley

288(a) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS
288(b)(1) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS W/FORCE

John Fitzgerald Carter

261(a)(2) RAPE BY FORCE/FEAR/ETC

Cedric Parker

261(a)(2) RAPE BY FORCE/FEAR/ETC
f243.4 SEXUAL BATTERY

Anthony Rayas Raymond

286(c)(2) SODOMY WITH FORCE, VIOLENCE, ETC.
288(a) LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS ACTS WITH CHILD UNDER 14 YEARS

Somehow sheriff's deputies were able to determine that a man who said he was shot in Duarte was actually shot in Altadena.

Last night we reported another Duarte shooting. The victim had taken himself to an area hospital and we were going to fill in the gaps.

TUrns out it didn't happen in Duarte at all or Arcadia or Monrovia. The shooting took place several miles away in Altadena.

Injured was a Latino man. Sheriff's detectives said the shooting was gang related.

The gathering Tuesday night was attended by several hundred who want something done. They were told by state and local officials that not much can be done... it's too late.

Here' s an excerpt from a story by Elise Kleeman that will appear in tomorrow's Star-News:

The six men living in a single-family home on Risinghill Road range in age from 28 to 56. Four of them were convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child younger than 14, including one man who used force and another who sodomized his victim. The others were found guilty of rape by force or fear, with one also convicted of sexual battery.

All are parolees, released early from their terms in state prison and placed in the home by the Pasadena parole office, said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detective Ruby Munshi. They are wearing GPS tracking ankle bracelets, she said.

“There’s so many children in that area, it’s just terrifying,” said Dennis Bridwell, who lives four houses away. “I’ve spoken to so many people that have taken their kids’ drawings out of the windows. Anything that shows there are children there, they’ve hidden them.”

One neighbor who lives about a block and a half down the road said Monday that she longer walks to her friend’s house two blocks away.

“To us, this is just a disaster,” said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous because she feared for her safety. “We just feel really put upon, just that they haven't given us any warning. This is horribly negligent.”

At the meeting, one husband talked of being afraid to his their wife home alone, a tearful mother said she was no longer able to sleep at night because of her concern for her child and another resident decried the facility as a “revolving door” for parolees, making them difficult to keep track of.

The community learned of their new neighbors when one Meadows resident happened to check the state-run Megan’s Law Web-site. Neither nearby Loma Alta Park nor Odyssey Charter School officials were notified of the new group home, the neighbors said.