Ruling delayed on sex predator’s Campo move

A judge on Wednesday put off making a decision about whether a sexually violent predator will be allowed to live in the rural East County community of Campo, saying she wanted time to view the area.

After listening to comments from several Campo residents, San Diego Superior Court Judge Margie G. Woods said she wanted to see the neighborhood where convicted child molester Allen Fields may live under heavy supervision. She said she also wanted to discuss the residents' concerns about long response times by law enforcement in that area.

“We know who he is and what he has done,” the judge said about Fields, who was convicted of molesting four boys in the 1980s and served time in prison.

Woods stressed to Campo residents at the hearing that she has to follow the law, which allows Fields to be released from a state mental hospital after completing a lengthy inpatient treatment program for sex offenders.

He would be required to continue treatment on an outpatient basis while living in the community and he would have to follow several conditions including GPS monitoring.

The Department of State Hospitals has proposed placing Fields, 58, on a 5-acre property at 1138 Custer Road in Campo.

But the residents said they don’t want him there, arguing that it’s too close to homes, parks and other areas that children frequently visit, and would put them in danger.

“Campo is a quiet, close-knit community,” said Christine Vergara, who said she lives four doors down from the proposed placement site. She said she has four children of her own, and her fiance also has children and grandchildren.

“Our community is so close and so rural, you could leave your doors open at night,” she said. “That’s why I moved to this community, so I could let my kids do the things that I did as a child.”

Walter Ogle, a retired sheriff’s sergeant, said he and his wife had chosen not to have foreign exchange students stay in their home as they had in the past because of the possibility of Fields living only 200 yards away.

“I’d hate to have something happen,” he said.

To be classified as a sexually violent predator, a person has to have been convicted of a sex crime against at least one victim, and have a diagnosed mental disorder that makes him or her likely to reoffend. Fields is a diagnosed pedophile. He voluntarily submitted to surgical castration, authorities said.

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who attended the hearing, has said repeatedly that she believes the state has used the county’s backcountry as a “dumping ground” for sex predators, and that people with that designation should “be put away for good.”

A representative from Liberty Healthcare, the contractor responsible for supervising sex predators around the state, said the company had done an extensive search and found that the Custer Road site was both appropriate and available. He said offenders have been sent back to the hospital for breaking the rules of conditional release, but none committed more sex crimes.

“In 11 years, we have not had a client reoffend,” said Alan Stillman, Liberty’s director. “This SVP is going to be monitored closer than anybody else in the county.”

The judge is expected to make her decision Aug. 22.

Also on Wednesday, sheriff's deputies notified residents in Descanso that a man formerly classified as a sexually violent predator is now living in that community. David Chambless, a 53-year-old convicted child molester, lived under supervision in Jacumba for more than five years until a different judge determined last week that he is no longer a danger to the public.

Chambless was released from supervision without conditions.