Contra Costa Sues S.D. Over Rapist : Counties Battle to Keep Out Man Who Mutilated Victim; Change of Venue at Issue

In the latest move by Northern California counties scrambling to keep out paroled rapist Larry Singleton, Contra Costa County has named San Diego County as a defendant in a suit arguing that Singleton should be sent here.

Papers served against San Diego County on Friday name it as “Doe 3” in a Contra Costa County legal action seeking to prevent Singleton--who served time for raping and mutilating a 15-year-old girl--from being placed there.

In San Diego, meanwhile, public outcry against the possibility of Singleton’s parole to San Diego County has swamped city and county government offices, aides report, and has prompted measures to block any such move.

The state Court of Appeal on Thursday suggested that Singleton might be released in San Diego County.

San Diego County Counsel Lloyd Harmon said Friday that his office, in collaboration with the county district attorney, will submit to the Appeal Court the necessary arguments against Singleton’s placement in San Diego, where he was tried and found guilty more than than eight years ago.

‘Place of Commitment’

The Singleton trial was moved here on a change of venue from Stanislaus County, where Singleton raped a hitchhiker, cut off both her hands at the forearm and left her to die along a rural road. But the teen-ager, Mary Vincent, lived to testify against Singleton, who was found guilty and received a 15-year sentence for his crimes.

Singleton was released on parole a week ago, after serving eight years of his sentence, but state Corrections Department officials have been unable to find a jurisdiction that will accept him.

Contra Costa County Counsel Vic Westman said Friday that San Diego County was named in the Contra Costa suit because San Diego was the “place of commitment” from which Singleton was sent to prison.

But San Diego County Counsel Harmon said that such a contention--if found valid by the court--would put an end to the present change-of-venue procedure, in which a judge determines to move court proceedings away from the site of the crime to assure a fair and impartial trial.

“No county would accept a change-of-venue trial if it meant the risk of having to harbor the criminal at a later date,” Harmon said.

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor and Police Chief Bill Kolender sent a letter Thursday to state corrections officials stating firmly that the city would not permit Singleton to be paroled here, and questioning whether someone who committed a crime “too heinous for any rational human being to comprehend” should have been granted parole in the first place.

State Corrections Department spokesman Bob Gore said that San Diego County has not been considered as a parole site for Singleton but that this did not rule out San Diego’s consideration in the future.

Gore said Friday that Singleton, accompanied by corrections officials, “spent a quiet night” at an undisclosed North California location. It is costing the state $3,777 a day to maintain Singleton in motels with law enforcement personnel guarding him, moving him every day or so, until a permanent parole site is located.

Paul Downey, spokesman for Mayor O’Connor, said the mayor’s office has been swamped by calls from San Diegans irate at the thought that he might be sent here.

“That will never happen,” state Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), said Friday. He said he had received assurances from the state Corrections Department that San Diego was not in danger of having to harbor Singleton.

Nancy Allen, executive aide to County Supervisor John MacDonald, said that many North County constituents had made “rather rude” suggestions on where the paroled rapist should be sent. “Most of them I couldn’t repeat,” she said, adding that no caller favored Singleton’s placement in San Diego County.

MacDonald will introduce a resolution before the Board of Supervisors Tuesday to grant Board Chairman Brian Bilbray and County Administrator Norman Hickey the right to act to protect the county if necessary against any attempt to bring the paroled rapist here.