Hearing being held Friday morning in Placer County about placement of sexually violent predator
PLACER COUNTY - A placement hearing is being held Friday morning over where to place a sexually violent predator.
As authorities grapple with what to do with the release of a sexually violent predator, neighbors are digging in, making it clear they don't want him.
The placement hearing for the sexually violent predator William Robert Stephenson in Placer County is happening Friday at 8:30 a.m. People in this area have made it clear they don't want it to happen near them. Protests are expected to happen.
Amador County residents don't want William Stephenson, a sexually violent predator, to live in their community. They say Stephenson has a long history of re-offending – which is all laid out in court documents obtained by CBS13. He began exposing himself to high school students four decades ago. His "criminal sexual behavior" escalated to assault in 1985, where he received probation and treatment for the first time, then two violent sexual assaults, and 20 sexual offenses before that based on his own testimony. In 2017, Stephenson was out on a conditional release and rearrested for possession of child pornography in Roseville.
The Placer County DA's office has fought against his release every step of the way, but now it's imminent.
"Whether he's in a house or an RV, he's still in the vicinity of the neighborhood, dangerous to me," said a Placer County resident.
Stephenson could be one of less than a dozen parolees in more than two decades of the state's conditional release program to be placed without an address, set up in a parked RV somewhere in Placer County.
The DA says that, by its very nature, "transient status" means someone will be moving around, putting more obligations on the person, and giving them more opportunities for failure.