Officials Move Rothenberg to Different Prison

Charles David Rothenberg, the man who set his son afire in 1983, was moved to another, undisclosed state prison over the weekend, adding further secrecy to his parole today.

Prison officials said Tuesday that, for security and financial reasons, Rothenberg was transferred Sunday afternoon from the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo to one of the state’s other 19 facilities.

Rothenberg, 49, will complete his 6 3/4-year sentence for the burning of his son today, when he will be paroled to an unnamed California town.

“The Department of Corrections is going to do everything to make sure this is a secure parole, not only for the welfare of everyone concerned but to keep the cost down,” said prisons spokesman Tipton C. Kindel. “No one is pleased to have Rothenberg paroled to their community.”

Public outrage over Rothenberg’s release forced the Corrections Department to keep secret where and what time he would be paroled from San Luis Obispo. They had said only that Rothenberg would not be sent to Orange County, where his son, David, 13, and his ex-wife, Marie Hafdahl, now live.

But Kindel said Rothenberg’s parole has received such intense media coverage that officials feared a “shark-feeding frenzy”--that someone might spot the arsonist’s departure from prison and that publicity might threaten the secrecy of his destination.

“It’s not going to help the taxpayers if we have to do this like Singleton,” he said.

Lawrence Singleton, who raped a teen-age girl and then axed off her forearms, was repeatedly driven out of several Northern California communities where he had been paroled because people did not want him living in their town. Singleton ended up spending his parole on the San Quentin prison grounds.

The failed efforts to relocate Singleton from California to other states cost the state $2 million, Kindel said.

Because Rothenberg’s parole restrictions will be the tightest of any parolee in California to date, the cost to supervise him will be $18,000 a month for three years--or about $648,000, Kindel said.

By contrast, Kindel said it costs about $2,971 a year to supervise a less notorious parolee.

“It’s cheaper to keep Rothenberg’s whereabouts a secret than drive him all over hither and yon.”

State prison officials tried unsuccessfully to keep Rothenberg behind bars but said they had no choice but to release him today. He was sentenced to 13 years, the maximum penalty then, for attempted murder, arson and other charges related to the March 3, 1983, fire that nearly killed his son and left him scarred for life.

Rothenberg said he tried to kill David, then 6, because his ex-wife threatened to prevent him from seeing the boy.

State law allows inmates a day off for each day they work or go to school behind bars. So Rothenberg’s sentence was effectively cut in half. He earned a few extra weeks in prison after he violated prison rules by having people personally deliver letters to his ex-wife’s new husband, instead of mailing them.

Keeping Rothenberg at the San Luis Obispo prison was “a physical hazard as well,” Kindel said. Reporters were banned from the grounds and “the prison is right up against Highway 1. We didn’t want to end up with the media lined up against the road, maybe endangered. Or saying they wouldn’t move and the CHP arresting them. If not for the fact that the media was going to be camped out there, we wouldn’t have moved Rothenberg.”

Wayne Estelle, warden of the Men’s Colony, said Rothenberg was driven from the prison amid “some security, mostly to make sure there was an orderly way about it.”

Rothenberg will spend the next three years under 24-hour supervision by parole agents. He will carry an electronic transmitter that alerts officials if he leaves his parole site or if he cuts or breaks the transmitter.

These restrictions and a meeting Monday with parole agents has made David Rothenberg, an eighth-grader, feel safer, his stepfather, Buena Park Police Lt. Richard Hafdahl, said Tuesday.

“The parole officers explained very explicitly how they feel about Charles and how it’s going to be for his parole,” said Hafdahl, the officer who led the police investigation into the fire. “I think David trusted that these guys know what they’re doing.”

Hafdahl said that he received 45 phone calls from reporters before 5 p.m. Tuesday and that the family is exhausted by it. Consequently, David said, he is going to answer questions today at a press conference to get it over with at once.

“I’m going to school,” he said, “then I’ll go do the press conference.”

Times staff writer Tony Marcano contributed to this report.