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Judge rules convicted serial rapist could be housed in Palmdale upon release

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Christopher Hubbart (42888)
Christopher Hubbart

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Despite objections from Los Angeles County prosecutors and Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a judge ruled today that a convicted serial rapist could be housed in Palmdale upon his release.

A formal hearing will be held in 45 days by Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown to finalize the proposed housing of Christopher Hubbart, who admitted raping about 40 women between 1971 and 1982.

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 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 and housed somewhere in Los Angeles County — a decision that Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey contended was in error. An appeals court and the state Supreme Court, however, declined to overturn Brown’s ruling.

Lacey’s office and Antonovich have strongly opposed plans to allow Hubbart to live in Los Angeles County.

Lacey said Hubbart lived in Santa Clara County in the years leading to his last arrest and no longer has family living in Los Angeles County.  California law requires that a sexually violent predator be conditionally released to the county of his or her domicile “prior to the person’s incarceration,” according to prosecutors.

A prosecutor in Santa Clara County said Hubbart, if released, would be under strict supervision, including electronic monitoring.

Hubbart, 62, could be released as early as December.

“Our priority is to safeguard our residents and make certain Hubbart is obeying all conditions of his release,” Lacey said.

Antonovich said in July that Hubbart needs to remain “behind bars, not released into our neighborhoods.”

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

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 District Attorney’s Office.

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