Counter Pedophilia Investigate Unit

The Associated Press – SANTA ANA, Calif.—A convicted pedophile who became the public face of Megan’s Law in the 1990s was denied his bid for release from a state mental facility on Thursday.An Orange County Superior Court jury determined Sid Landau, 69, was still a threat to society and should remain hospitalized in state custody, where he has been held for eight years.

Two previous juries deadlocked on whether Landau should be released.

Dressed in a blue-and-white checkered shirt, the gray-haired Landau looked down at the table, sighed and whispered to his lawyer, “I’m going to die in jail,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Prosecutors pursued a petition under the state’s sexually violent predator statute, which allows offenders deemed a continual threat to remain hospitalized in state custody after their prison sentences are completed.

Landau claimed he is not a threat because of his age and poor health, including prostate cancer and heart surgery. But prosecutors argued he is incurable.

Landau was convicted of molesting two boys in the 1980s but has admitted to abusing 10. He served a combined 10 years in prison on those convictions.

He became one of Southern California’s most recognizable pedophiles in the 1990s when police, who were enforcing Megan’s Law for the first time, distributed fliers in his Placentia neighborhood identifying him as a convicted sex offender.

He was chased from a series of homes and motels by death threats and protesters until he was arrested on parole violations in 1997.

He was transferred to a state mental hospital in 2000 following his second probation violation.

Megan’s Law was enacted in 1996 and allows police to publicize the whereabouts of sex offenders.

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