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Orange police say they are monitoring newly released sex offender

Police are actively monitoring an admitted sex offender who reportedly moved to a residential facility in Orange after a more than two-decade-long forced-stay in a state mental hospital.

The Orange Police Department on Friday announced that Cary Jay Smith, 59, has checked into an adult residential facility near Tustin Street and Chapman Avenue. The department added that they have set up a surveillance detail to monitor Smith.

Smith’s controversial release comes two decades after he wrote a letter about his urge to kidnap and molest a 7-year-old boy in his Costa Mesa neighborhood. For reasons that are still unclear to law enforcement, Smith is not required to register as a sex offender, so he is not listed in the publicly accessible Megan’s Law database and there are no limitations on where he is allowed to reside.

District Attorney Todd Spitzer and Supervisor Michelle Steel wrote a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom describing Smith’s release as “unconscionable” and asking that he be forced to register as a sex offender. A similar letter was written to the governor by the mother of Smith’s victim, and a change.org petition calling for his sex offender registration has garnered more than 8,000 signatures.

Psychologists during numerous court hearings have described Smith as an imminent danger to society due to his admitted fantasies about harming children. He has acknowledged writing letters and poems about having sex with minors and admitted to referring himself in the third person as “Mr. RTK,” an acronym he has said stands for rape, torture and kill.

Court appointed attorney’s who have represented Smith in the past have argued that he has learned to suppress his fantasies. Because of privacy regulations, it isn’t clear if medical officials changed their mind about Smith’s mental status – and his potential danger to the public – prior to his release.

County attorney’s were not sent a petition to renew Smith’s mental health hold prior to it expiring earlier this week. While Smith as not criminally charged in connection to the 1999 letter, he has at least one conviction in his past – for a 1983 case in which he reportedly payed a young boy $1 to run through sprinklers in the nude.


Source: Orange County Register

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