You Could Pay For A Violent Sex Offender To Live In A Luxury 4-Bedroom Fairfield Home With Pool
FAIRFIELD (CBS SF) -- A high-risk sex offender wants to live in an upper middle-class Fairfield neighborhood, but residents are less than pleased about it.
Egrets fly over the neighborhood on Willotta Drive in Suisun Valley. Peacocks strut across the street, going nowhere in particular. Vintage ranch-style homes surround the area. This is where 51-year-old high-risk sex offender Fraisure Smith wants to live.
Smith was convicted of sexually assaulting four teen girls. His last offense was in Solano County in 2006, which is where he'll be released.
Few property owners are willing to rent to sex offenders, but one homeowner agreed to rent Smith his $3,200-a-month four-bedroom home with a pool, covered by California taxpayers.
Concerned resident Wayne Little has lived in the neighborhood for more than 40 years. He said he was handed a flyer from a sheriff's deputy about Smith, who's currently in a state mental hospital in Coalinga.
"How did we get so lucky?" Little said with sarcasm. "I don't like it."
Neighbor Carol Von Beltz had some questions about it.
"Who's paying for this mortgage and to feed him?" she asked. "He's 51-year-old and has no job."
State corrections officials spend millions every year on apartments and motel rooms for hundreds of paroled sex offenders since under Jessica's Law, they cannot live within a certain distance of a school or park where children gather, regardless of whether the crimes involved children.
Without the state paying sex offenders' rent, many would be homeless and in violation of their parole.
Smith has a high-risk of reoffending, according to the California Department of Justice. Smith is considered a sexually-violent predator whose latest conviction was for assault with the intent to commit a sex crime in 2006.
The court will consider Smith's request for placement at a March 27 public hearing in Solano County Superior Court.