Well-Traveled Sex Suspect to Head Back to Southland

A judge on Thursday ordered a convicted sex offender who was “dumped” on Florida by the Santa Monica police chief returned to Southern California.

Dade County Circuit Judge Calvin Mapp ordered convicted sex offender Weston J. Hill returned to Santa Monica after he undergoes further psychiatric tests.

Santa Monica Police Chief James Keane admitted that he had put Hill, a diagnosed schizophrenic, on a plane for Miami last March 19 in response to a similar action by a Fort Lauderdale judge in the case of convicted prostitute.

Melanie King, 24, who was arrested 47 times for prostitution, had been given a choice between prison and a one-way airline ticket to Los Angeles.

She took the ticket to the West Coast and wound up in a Santa Monica courtroom last year on charges of lewd conduct and prostitution.

Keane’s retaliatory move sparked a heated bi-coastal exchange of insults after Hill was arrested on an indecent exposure charge April 5 for pulling down his see-through jockey shorts on a Miami Beach street.

Mapp said that Florida has no authority to send Hill to California against his will but that Hill wants to go back.

He ordered Hill to undergo additional psychiatric tests during the next 10 days and said Hill will be sent back to California when they are completed.

Prosecutors said they are trying to arrange for Hill to be admitted to a Santa Monica mental hospital as soon as he returns.

A Santa Monica police spokesman said Keane had gone home for the day and would have no immediate comment.