Rothenberg Out on Parole and Tight Leash

Charles David Rothenberg was released from prison Wednesday under the tightest parole measures in California history--nearly seven years after he burned his son beyond recognition in a twisted plot to hurt the wife who divorced him.

At 12:40 a.m., Rothenberg was driven from an undisclosed California prison under guard by six parole agents, who delivered him to an unnamed parole destination sometime before 9 a.m., officials said.

Dressed in blue jeans and chambray shirt and toting two boxes of personal belongings, a prison spokesman said, Rothenberg’s only remark upon release was, “I’m afraid and upset.”

To prevent him from getting anywhere near his son--and to calm public indignation about his release--Rothenberg will wear an electronic “leash” and have three parole agents who live with him, rotating in daily shifts.

David Rothenberg, sitting atop a phone book to reach all the microphones, told a throng of 50 reporters and photographers at an afternoon press conference that he is less afraid now of his father’s release.

“I feel more comfortable because now I know . . . what kind of parole he’s going to be put on,” said David, 13, who agreed to discuss his father’s parole at the Buena Park police station, where his stepfather works. “I think I’m in good hands.”

Although Rothenberg has expressed regret for what he did, David said he doesn’t believe it.

“He just says stuff. He says he’s sorry. He’s just saying that so he can try to get near me again.” He added firmly, “That’s not going to happen.”

David said he held the press conference “because I want it known nationally that I don’t want to ever see my father again. And I want to make it clear to him.”

While authorities have refused to identify where Rothenberg was sent Wednesday for fear such a disclosure would result in repeated and costly relocations, they said he has a clerical job in private enterprise that will “at least pay for his room and board.”

Tipton C. Kindel, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, said Rothenberg’s living quarters “are essentially some type of an apartment setting.”

Rothenberg, 49, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, arson and other charges stemming from the March 3, 1983, fire in a Buena Park motel room that permanently disfigured his son. He was sentenced to 13 years, the maximum penalty allowed by state law that has since been toughened. Were he sentenced today, he could be sent to prison for life.

State law allows prisoners a day off their sentence for each day they work or participate in an education program. Rothenberg held a clerical job in the Soledad state prison’s public information office and had worked since last fall as a groundskeeper at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. His sentence was effectively cut in half.

He twice violated prison rules by arranging for hand delivery of letters to his son’s stepfather instead of using the mails, offenses which increased his time in prison by several weeks.

Public outrage over Rothenberg’s pending release forced corrections officials to keep his parole destination a secret. Members of a family which two years ago offered to help Rothenberg upon his release now say they have received death threats. Another inmate at the California Men’s Colony, enraged at what Rothenberg did to his son, punched him in the face Jan. 10. And since a Riverside County hamlet rejected his parole there last year, authorities have feared a repeat of the Lawrence Singleton debacle.

In that case, the man convicted of raping a teen-age girl and axing off her forearms was driven out of several Northern California communities by citizens outraged at his prison release. After repeated relocations that cost the state $2 million, he finally served out his parole in a trailer at San Quentin.

Nonetheless, it will cost $648,000 over the next three years--until his parole expires--to monitor Rothenberg, compared to the $2,900 annual cost to keep tabs on a less notorious parolee. Kindel said the $18,000 monthly expense to keep Rothenberg will go largely toward paying the salaries and benefits of the three full-time parole agents who will watch Rothenberg 24 hours a day.

Kindel added that authorities “may re-evaluate” at a later date the need to continue such an extensive watch on Rothenberg.

Asked what kind of employer would tolerate a parole agent accompanying Rothenberg to work every day, Kindel said, “A very cooperative one.”

As Rothenberg’s release approached, media coverage became so extensive that prison officials worried someone might spot him leaving the Men’s Colony and follow him to his parole destination. In an effort to avoid that, corrections officials moved Rothenberg Sunday afternoon to one of California’s other 18 prisons, and secreted him from that prison in darkness Wednesday morning.

Although technically free, Rothenberg, a former New York waiter who also has run a Laundromat, will be under the tightest parole restrictions of any released prisoner in the state, Kindel said. Singleton also lived with parole agents and other parolees have worn the cigarette pack-size transmitters. But no other inmate has been subject to both, Kindel said.

If Rothenberg removes the transmitter he wil have violated his parole, and that could return him to prison.

The son he nearly killed and the ex-wife he was trying to hurt will not be told where Rothenberg is living, only that it is not in Southern California. Rothenberg’s parole restrictions also forbid him from any contact with David Rothenberg and Marie Hafdahl, who married Buena Park Police Lt. Richard Hafdahl in May, 1988.

Gray-haired and 40 pounds lighter than he appears in 2-year-old newspaper photos, Rothenberg has repeatedly insisted he would never again hurt his son, nor would he bother him or the boy’s mother, who was the indirect target that spring night in 1983.

Rothenberg told his ex-wife he was taking their son from the mother’s New York home to the Catskills for a week but brought him instead to Buena Park, where they checked into a Travelodge and planned to visit Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. It rained the whole week and Rothenberg called Marie requesting more time with their son. But he accidentally revealed they were in California, and in a phone call both parents say triggered the tragedy, she told him he would never see his son again once they returned to New York.

That day, father and son went to a hardware store, where Rothenberg paid $8.47 for a 2 1/2-gallon jug of kerosene. In the minutes before midnight March 3, he poured the flammable liquid around the bed where his son lay sleeping, then lit a match and fled. He was arrested a week later in San Francisco, and confessed he had tried to kill his son in a jealous rage because, “if I couldn’t have him, nobody could.”

It was not David Rothenberg’s first brush with arson. In November, 1981, the two-story Brooklyn brownstone where Marie and David lived was deliberately set ablaze, John Mulligan, spokesman for the New York City fire marshal’s office, said in an interview after the boy was burned.

Someone had poured kerosene up the stairwell leading to their apartment and ignited it, and mother and son fled down the fire escape. No arrest was ever made, and Rothenberg denied any hand in that fire during a 1988 prison interview with The Times.

He now professes undying love for the son he has not touched since the night he kissed him goodby, then torched him. He has said in numerous letters to The Times that he will never forgive himself for permanently disfiguring David. But he also says that meeting with his son to “ask his forgiveness” is his only reason for living.

That troubles David. And while he told reporters Wednesday that he feels safer than he did before, he has learned self-defense, all the best ways out of his Orange County home and how to fire the B.B. gun he got for Christmas, should he need to protect himself.

Asked if he is concerned about what happens when his father is truly free in three years, David said: “I know that he’ll try (to see me). I won’t answer the door or anything. If it seems he’s gonna hurt me I’ll do something for protection. We’ve taken out some precautions.”

His wish to put what his father did behind him is so great that he almost always refers to him as Charles. But getting over it all, he said, may only come “when Charles dies.”

DREADED DAY--David Rothenberg says it loud and clear: He never wants to see his father again. A29

CHARLES ROTHENBERG: ARREST TO PAROLE

Feb. 21, 1983--Charles David Rothenberg, 42, picks up his son, David Rothenberg, 6, from the Brooklyn, N.Y., home of his estranged wife, Marie, telling her that he would bring the boy home on Feb. 27.

Feb. 28--Rothenberg phones his ex-wife from Buena Park, assuring her that David is safe. Marie Rothenberg reports her son missing to New York City police, who are already seeking Rothenberg in the vandalism-burglary of a Manhattan restaurant where he had been employed as a waiter.

March 2--Rothenberg checks into a Travelodge motel on Beach Boulevard in Buena Park, telling the desk clerk he planned to take his son to Disneyland.

March 3--Shortly after midnight, Room 139 explodes into flames. David is found on the melting carpet, third-degree burns over 90% of his body, the victim of a kerosene-fueled blaze. A man fitting Rothenberg’s description is seen fleeing, carrying a fuel can.

March 9--After a weeklong nationwide search, Rothenberg is arrested outside a YMCA in San Francisco.

March 13--Rothenberg admits to police and reporters that he set fire to his son because he feared his ex-wife would prevent him from seeing the boy again. “I decided to kill us both. If I couldn’t have him, nobody could,” he tells The Times in a jailhouse interview.

March 21--Rothenberg is arraigned in Municipal Court in Fullerton. He pleads not guilty to charges of arson, attempted murder, inflicting great bodily injury and the use of a deadly weapon--the kerosene used to start the fire.

June 24--Appearing in Orange County Superior Court, Rothenberg reverses his plea. “To not plead guilty would be dishonest,” he tells Superior Court Judge James R. Franks II.

July 29--Judge Franks sentences Rothenberg to 13 years in prison--the maximum penalty under the law--for attempted murder and arson. “That is not enough for what you did,” Franks tells Rothenberg.

July 9, 1984--Marie Rothenberg and David move from Brooklyn to Orange County. She later weds Buena Park Police Lt. Richard Hafdahl, one of the first investigators assigned to track down her ex-husband.

Nov. 3, 1989--Corrections officials postpone Rothenberg’s scheduled parole date from Dec. 11 to Jan. 9, 1990, after he violates rules by having letters personally delivered to his son’s stepfather instead of mailing them. The release date is further delayed until Jan. 24 for repeating the violation.

Nov. 8--Residents of Desert Center, a Riverside County village about 25 miles from the Eagle Mountain Return to Custody Center, angrily reject corrections officials’ plans to relocate Rothenberg there after his parole.

Jan. 19, 1990--Corrections officials announce that Rothenberg’s parole will be the most restrictive in state history, with round-the-clock surveillance, a live-in parole officer and an electronic locater device strapped to his ankle.

Jan. 24--Rothenberg is released shortly after midnight from an undisclosed state corrections facility after being moved from one at San Luis Obispo. His destination remains secret. Hours later, at a Buena Park press conference, his son reiterates his fears that Rothenberg will try to contact him.

Compiled by Tony Marcano, Times Staff Writer