Vigilante Link to Megan’s Law Is Feared in Arson

Stoking opponents’ fears of the potentially violent consequences of Megan’s Law, authorities reported Thursday that a van owned by a convicted child molester was firebombed last weekend in an apparent vigilante attack--just days after neighbors learned his identity as a result of a new public database.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators believe that an arsonist destroyed a van owned by Willie Lee McAlister as it sat in front of his home in unincorporated Covina on Saturday morning--days after one of McAlister’s neighbors verified his identity in the CD-ROM database made available to the public by Megan’s Law.

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“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Lynn Judes.

Named for a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was killed by a convicted sex offender who lived across the street, Megan’s Law has been touted by state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren as a means of providing parents with information they can use to protect their children.

But opponents, including civil libertarians, say it allows and even encourages acts of vigilantism. And Saturday’s attack may mean their fears have come true.

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“This is something we predicted all along,” said Elizabeth Schroeder, associate director of the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. “With the release of the identities of 64,000 ex-offenders in the database, it was inevitable. It was very shortsighted of the Legislature to think when they enacted this that such incidents would not happen.”

McAlister, 42, was paroled in 1994 and has lived in the middle-class Covina neighborhood for at least six months, investigators said. As a convicted sex offender, he is required to register his address annually with local authorities. But on July 1, along with 64,000 other registered sex offenders statewide, his identity, physical description and ZIP Code became accessible in a database, available at every sheriff’s station and several police stations.

Sheriff Sherman Block said he planned to publicize the whereabouts of about 90 “high risk” offenders by posting fliers in sheriff’s stations, county libraries and city halls. But because the database is rife with inaccuracies, Block ordered deputies to personally verify the addresses of the offenders before posting the fliers.

That appears to be how word of McAlister’s record leaked out to his neighbors. A woman who lives across the street from him said she saw uniformed deputies at his door July 1 and when she later confronted him, discovered he was a registered sex offender.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Larry Crookshanks said that once one neighbor learned of McAlister’s record, “it spread like wildfire.” No eyewitnesses have come forward, but he said vigilantism appeared to be the obvious motive. “It stands out and hits you between the eyes.”

A spokesman for Lungren said that in spite of the potential for abuse, the law is sound.

“If there is any type of reprisal, the flaw would be in the [vigilantes] that commit that crime, not in the law itself,” spokesman Rob Stutzman said.

At a recent news conference where he unveiled the database, Lungren said it was possible that offenders would be “inconvenienced,” but that the safety of children outweighed their concerns.

Some law enforcement officials, however, worry that even the threat of reprisals will drive paroled offenders into hiding, making it harder for police to track them.

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“We don’t want to drive these people underground,” said Sheriff’s Capt. Roy Pugh, who is supervising implementation of Megan’s Law for the Sheriff’s Department. “We want to keep them where we can track them on a regular basis.”

As arson investigators searched for clues, residents on McAlister’s block were left wondering how to handle news of their neighbor.

Before last week, children used to flood the sidewalks. Mothers left their doors open, and kids would dash from house to house. But on Thursday all doors were closed. When a stranger approached a house, children peered through shuttered windows and called out fearfully to their parents.

Sylvia Earles, who lives across the street from McAlister, was the first to learn of his record. She spotted uniformed deputies at his door July 1. McAlister wasn’t home, but when he returned that evening Earles asked him why the deputies were looking for him.

At first, Earles said, McAlister said it was for child support. Then, as Earles’ 6-year-old daughter ran around him in her living room, he confided: It was because of Megan’s Law. He was a registered sex offender and the deputies were verifying his address.

Earles sent her son to the Walnut sheriff’s station to check McAlister’s story. He found that McAlister was listed as the sole high-risk offender in the area, meaning he had multiple felony convictions, at least one of which involved sexual violence.

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Records show that McAlister has been convicted of engaging in a lascivious act with a child under 14, oral copulation with a child under 14 with use of force, and had been committed for 90 days as a “mentally disturbed sex offender.”

Now Earles’ daughter sleeps with her. Her husband sleeps on the floor in the living room. She keeps her dog inside just in case.

During the day she runs a day-care facility from her home, watching four other children. Up the block is another facility, with four toddlers and three preteens.

“He couldn’t have planned a better position for himself, whether he did it intentionally or by accident,” Earles said.

Up the block, at the second day-care facility, reaction was more muted. The owner, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Sheila, was warned about McAlister by Earles.

“He’s made no approach toward any of my children,” Sheila said, “and as long as he doesn’t do that, I have no problem with him.”

Both of the day-care owners decried the suspected arson, in which no one was hurt.

“That’s not fair,” Sheila said, adding that such actions could force offenders underground and make them impossible to track.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.