Santa Monica’s ‘Gift’ : Sex Offender Sought a New Start in Miami

A convicted sex offender says he accepted an offer from Santa Monica police for a one-way ticket to Florida because he hoped for a new start in life and couldn’t wait “to get on that big plane and soar.”

Weston J. Hill, 44, was arrested on charges of indecent exposure and public mischief within a month after his arrival in Florida. In a jail house interview Friday, he said that Santa Monica police talked him into accepting the free trip, but he really needed psychiatric help.

“They colored it up pretty good,” said Hill, who was ordered held on $10,000 bail. “They used psychology on me. They said maybe it’s a brand-new start for me. It seemed like they were being realistic, so I bought it.

“The other thing that sounded kind of good too was to get on that big plane and soar.”

Returned 1982 Gesture

Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane said that he decided to send Hill to Florida in part because a Florida judge in 1982 had offered a prostitute, Melanie Ann King, the choice of jail or a free trip to Los Angeles. She was later arrested in Santa Monica and other areas of the Los Angeles area.

Keane has said that Hill brought up the idea of going to Florida.

Hill said he is a pedophile, an adult with an abnormal sexual desire for children.

Hill was convicted in California of assault with a deadly weapon and sexual battery of a 16-year-old girl in 1976 and was confined to a mental hospital until 1982.

Seven months after his release he was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior and sent back to the mental hospital.

Last February, he was out again. On March 19, Santa Monica police bought him a $239 ticket to Miami.

Keane, in discussing his action last week, said: “The failure of the state of California’s judicial systems and its mental health institutions to handle the matter left me with no alternative. . . . Hill had to go.”

But Hill said life is no different in Miami.

“They wanted to get rid of me,” he said. “I was a pain. They sent me here for what my desires were. I need help very badly.” Hill said he wants to return to California.