"East Coast based-Liberty Healthcare sneaks into unsuspecting communities across California and employs a disturbing placement strategy where they try to secretly release dangerous SVPs and rapists into residential neighborhoods"

 

Liberty Healthcare had an exclusive contract with the California Department of State Hospitals to place sexually violent predators on conditional release. After 2023 and a request to audit, looks like nothing has changed. Senator Brian Jones is the only California legislator doing anything to address public safety and address issues with release of SVPs.

Liberty tried to place SVP Joshua Cooley in Humboldt and failed only because of the public. Now, they want to place SVP Richard Stobaugh in Humboldt. I am going to send this to DA Stacey Eads, Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm, DA Chief Investigator Kyla Baxley, Sheriff William Honsal and some community members I spoke with today.

We should thank Sheriff William Honsal, District Attorney Stacey Eads, Deputy District Attorney Whitney Timm and DA Chief Investigator Kyla Baxley who alerted the public.

Their thanks for keeping this community,women and children safe was being chastised by Judge Kaleb Cockrum who didn't want to deal with the public who have a right to be heard by California law. Judge Cockrum is the one who made the decision to conditionally release sexually violent predator Richard Stobaugh. Instead of lecturing us on the technicalities of law, Judge Cockrum should do his job and protect Humboldt. Retired Judge John Feeney did not throw a hissy fit and Judge Feeney allowed the public to speak and give comment about sexually violent predator Joshua Cooley at multiple hearings. As frustrated as I was at that time, ultimately Judge Feeney made the right decision and the process was not rushed nor was there disrespect towards the attorneys, the DA or the public.

A violent criminal's rights are not more important than the innocent public and victims who did not break the law. As usual, California legislators, Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Gavin Newsom have failed survivors and the people.

As I search on this issue further, a CBS News report in May 2024 "a sudden spike" in sexually violent predators being released by the California Department of  State Hospitals and gives a comparison with stats of how many SVPs were released since the law passed.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/sacramento/news/sexually-violent-predators-release-concerns-california-state-capitol/

CBS8 reported in August 2024 that Senator Jones' Sexually Violent Predator Accountability, Fairness, and Enforcement Act” never made it to a vote. A public records request showed it costs more than $450,000 a year to house a SVP.

https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/measure-protecting-neighborhoods-from-svp-placement-fails/509-0e7e7284-cdfe-45c0-add2-fe296c535c0b

From senate.ca.gov:

On June 26, 2023, "the Joint Legislative Audit Committee unanimously approved a request by Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-San Diego) to audit Liberty Healthcare’s long-running exclusive contract to manage the Sexually Violent Predator Conditional Release Program (SVP CONREP) currently overseen by the Department of State Hospitals (DSH). A petition in support of the audit request has almost 1,600 signatures.

"East Coast based-Liberty Healthcare sneaks into unsuspecting communities across California and employs a disturbing placement strategy where they try to secretly release dangerous SVPs and rapists into residential neighborhoods," said Leader Jones. “We are thankful that the bipartisan Legislative Audit Committee understands the need to further investigate Liberty Healthcare’s poor management of SVPs. Today is the first step towards fixing this broken and alarming SVP release program.”

“Public perception is that Liberty Healthcare and the CA Department of State Hospitals are unresponsive to community concerns and threaten public safety,” said Sarah Rogers, a clinical and industrial psychologist. “By not revealing the contract and ignoring requests by the press, public, and Senator Jones, the Department of State Hospitals fosters a dangerous precedent of being above public scrutiny and this must end.  An audit is the only means by which pre-release and conditional-release therapy and training practices may be fully understood. It is apparent that the contract is flawed and may be mismanaged. Conditional Release should be halted until the audit is conducted and the results are published for public review. Good governance and transparency are needed.”

Liberty Healthcare’s practices are not in line with public oversight and fail to focus on safety that the program calls for. In fact, it appears full details of where Liberty Healthcare is leasing homes for sexually violent predators are kept secret from neighbors, schools, and local government officials, including even local law enforcement. It is only after Liberty Healthcare signs leases for homes and pays for them with our tax dollars, that they slowly release details to the community, making it almost impossible to stand up against inappropriate placements. County District Attorneys have gone to court to block these dangerous placements of SVPs, and many judges have recognized the threat to public safety and ruled against Liberty Healthcare’s placements. Through the several attempted placements during my time as a Senator, it has been very difficult, if not impossible, to get information from DSH about the operation of their 20-year exclusive partnership with Liberty Healthcare. This troubles me because it seems that DSH has delegated their authority and responsibility to a private contractor.

I believe it is long past time to bring transparency to the SVP CONREP process operations.

For the full audit request and letter, go to

https://sr40.senate.ca.gov/content/joness-request-audit-liberty-healthcare-unanimously-approved

This is another link with results of the audit:

https://sr40.senate.ca.gov/content/new-audit-exposes-newsoms-department-state-hospitals-mismanagement-sexually-violent