MARIN COUNTY / Rapist Ghilotti released from predator program / He won't have to wear tracking device
Convicted rapist Patrick Ghilotti will no longer have to wear a tracking device and can live within 2,000 feet of schools, after a hearing Thursday in Marin County Superior Court.
The court approved a recommendation by the state that Ghilotti, 51, be released from the restrictions of California's sexually violent predator program, Marin County District Attorney Ed Berberian said. He will remain on the state's registry of convicted sex offenders, however, and will be required to reregister with law enforcement every 90 days.
Ghilotti spent 15 years in prison over two terms for the rapes of four women in Marin County in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He volunteered to be chemically castrated and received six years of treatment at Atascadero State Hospital, where he met his wife, Janet Frankhouser. She was employed at the hospital at the time.
Because Ghilotti was convicted of the crimes before the sexually violent predator program existed, Berberian said, he only participated in the program while he was an outpatient at Atascadero. Ghilotti's case recently came up for review, Berberian said, and a treatment team -- as well as an expert hired by the district attorney -- determined he was no longer a threat.
"We believe him to be a danger still, but our opinion is not evidence," he said. "Our expert made the same recommendation (as the treatment team) ... so we hit the wall. ... We hope we're going to be proven wrong, but we've done what we can do at this point."
Ghilotti's monitored release in 2004 to his wife's Vacaville home sparked outrage in that city, with police and city leaders arguing that he should be housed in the county where he committed his crimes. Despite a state law that requires sexually violent predators who have completed treatment at a state hospital to be sent back to the county where they lived before confinement, a court allowed Ghilotti to live in Vacaville with his wife, Berberian said.
At Thursday's hearing, Vacaville police Chief Richard Word spoke out against releasing Ghilotti from the program, Berberian said.
If Ghilotti had been convicted of his crimes more recently, when the sexually violent predator program existed, he most likely would be serving a life sentence, Berberian said.
San Francisco Bay Area rapist released from predator program
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