Serial Rapist May Return to Claremont

The District Attorney's Office filed an emergency writ today seeking to vacate a judge's order to release a serial rapist who some worry may to his previous home of Claremont.

Christopher Evans Hubbart admitted raping about 40 women between 1971 and 1982, according to a 2004 opinion filed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

“Our ultimate goal is to seek justice for all residents of Los Angeles County and make sure sexually violent predators remain in custody,'' said Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey. "This inmate has a long history of horrific violence against women and we must act to keep our community safe."

Lacey filed the petition for writ of mandate with the 6th Appellate District of the state Court of Appeal in San Jose, according to Jane Robison of the district attorney's office.

NBC Channel 4 news reported late Tuesday that Claremont Police has already been advised of Hubbart's release. The channel also talked to residents in Claremont's Village all who opposed his release.

Hubbart, who was arrested in 1972 in Los Angeles, was deemed a “mentally disordered sex offender'' and sent to Atascadero State Hospital. He was released in 1979 after doctors said he posed no further threat.

Over the next two years he raped another 15 women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to court documents. He was again imprisoned, then paroled in 1990. Hubbart subsequently was returned to prison after he accosted a woman in Santa Clara County.

Hubbart currently is being held at Coalinga State Hospital in Santa Clara County. His attorneys have argued that their client's detention violates his rights to due process.

In May, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown ruled that Hubbart should be released from prison.

“He needs to be behind bars, not released into our neighborhoods,” Mike Antonovich told his colleagues on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today, adding that Hubbart's sister apparently didn't want to take responsibility for him.

“Perhaps the judge should take him, if he wants him out so badly, let him live in Santa Clara in his neighborhood,'' said Antonovich.

Hubbart was born in Pasadena in 1951 and lived there for the first six years of his life, when he moved to Claremont, where he lived until 1971, according to the D.A.'s petition. The petition argues that Hubbart's domicile for legal purposes should be either Santa Clara County, where he lived for years, or San Bernardino County, where he was last returned from parole.

Lacey said that last week her office had begun notifying Hubbart's Los Angeles victims of his potential release.

“If these crimes were committed today, this inmate's release would not be in question,” Lacey said. “Today's violent sexual predators face life in prison.”

Hubbart is not set to be released until November.

A prosecutor in Santa Clara County said Hubbart, if released, would be under strict supervision, including electronic monitoring, according to the Los Angeles Times.

-- City News Service

Photo by NBC Channel 4. Please click here to read their report.