Santa Cruz County Sheriff Chris Clark is pushing back against a state plan to move convicted rapist Michael Thomas Cheek, 74, out of a locked psychiatric facility and into a taxpayer-funded rental home near a Girl Scout camp and local schools.
The rental property under consideration is valued at more than $800,000 and sits in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Sheriff Clark told Fox News Digital the location raises serious safety concerns, both because of its proximity to children and because of the area’s rugged, isolated terrain.
“The community for which he’s being considered to be released, it’s a really tight-knit community,” Clark said. “It’s not necessarily the easiest place for us to get to you know if and when something were to happen.”
Clark said the proposed home is within a few miles of a Girl Scout camp and schools, calling that proximity “obviously concerning.” He also raised doubts about whether electronic monitoring would even function reliably in the area.
“When you talk about our mountain communities, it’s not uncommon that during the winter, you know, these folks lose power. The cell connectivity is extremely poor up there. And so, when you think about monitoring him electronically, how effective are those systems if you have no electricity? And how about if people can’t call for help if they suspect Mr. Cheek is up to something when cell service is poor?” Clark said.
A Violent Record
Cheek was convicted in 1980 of raping a young woman at gunpoint. He later escaped from the Contra Costa County jail and raped a 15-year-old girl at gunpoint. He was subsequently classified as a sexually violent predator and completed a sex offender treatment program at a psychiatric facility in 2019.
Two previous attempts to place Cheek in Santa Cruz County have failed. Clark emphasized that Cheek has no actual connection to the county beyond the crimes he committed there.
“Mr. Cheek has no tie to our county. He’s not from Santa Cruz County. And so his only tie here is that he frankly abducted somebody and raped them. And so he victimized people here. And so to me, it is completely unfair and shouldn’t be the case where a county that somebody’s victimized people is then burdened with the thought of having to house him here in one of the most expensive places frankly in the country to live, which we are,” Clark said.
A superior court judge is scheduled to hear arguments on Cheek’s proposed housing arrangement on Oct. 30. Cheek’s attorney has not responded to a request for comment.
