Rothenberg Says He Didn’t Break Parole

The man who set fire to his son seven years ago in Buena Park says he did not violate his parole this week as state Department of Corrections officials allege, and was only trying to find a job.

In a letter received by The Times on Friday, Charles Rothenberg insisted that he had broken no rules Monday when parole agents claim he eluded them, then lied about his whereabouts for four hours before he was found.

“I now believe I’ve been set up! . . . The parole agent told me he would assist with employment. He’s taken too long, gone on four vacations, (had) a face-lift, gone to golf games, and I sit doing nothing,” Rothenberg, 50, wrote in a six-page letter from his cell at San Quentin state prison. “Why did this happen to me? . . . My parole conditions state I can go anywhere I want in Alameda County from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. It’s as clear as daylight.”

State officials could not be reached for comment late Friday. However, Corrections Department spokesman Tipton C. Kindel said earlier this week that Rothenberg violated his parole because he was “out of contact” with the parole agents and “deliberately misled them.”

Rothenberg confessed to trying to kill his son in a March 3, 1983, motel fire in a plot to hurt the wife who divorced him. The blaze left his son, David Rothenberg, now 14, permanently scarred from third-degree burns over 90% of his body.

His father, a former Brooklyn, N.Y., waiter, was paroled to Oakland Jan. 24 after serving six years and five months of a 13-year prison term, the maximum allowed under laws that have since been changed.

Corrections officials said the terms of his parole included round-the-clock supervision by parole agents and the wearing of an electronic device on his ankle that alerts authorities when it is taken out of a pre-assigned area.

Kindel said Rothenberg knew he was to be under constant supervision Monday. After arriving at a job interview he claimed he had set up himself and finding the business closed, Rothenberg was allowed to wait at a doughnut shop. Kindel said a parole agent waited outside for 15 to 20 minutes, “enough time to have a doughnut and some coffee.” When Rothenberg failed to emerge, the agent discovered that he had slipped out a side or back door, authorities said.

Rothenberg then called a second agent and claimed he was at a different job interview, according to authorities. The agent told him to stay where he was but did not find Rothenberg when he arrived 10 minutes later.

Agents found him at yet another job interview at 11:30 a.m., and took him into custody without resistance.

In his letter, Rothenberg did not address the allegations that he ducked out of the doughnut shop and eluded the parole agent following him.

Kindel said that despite repeated attempts by the Corrections Department to find him employment, Rothenberg continued to seek jobs for which he lacked skills, such as an employment agency counselor.

Several people that Rothenberg referred to as “witnesses” of his Monday morning job search could not be reached late Friday.

Authorities have 45 days to give Rothenberg a hearing, and he could receive a maximum six months in prison if found guilty of a parole violation.