Wilson Talks With Rapist Protesters : Parole: Delegation from Modoc County meets with governor over placement of sex offender in their area. He says he did not choose the location.

Gov. Pete Wilson sought Monday to soothe angry feelings of residents of Modoc County, where officials shipped a paroled rapist because of its location in the state’s isolated northeast corner.

At first saying he would not meet with a Modoc County delegation that traveled to the capital, Wilson later invited the group into his office to hear them out. The group consisted of law enforcement, county and school officials and a contingent of high school girls.

The effects of Wilson’s efforts to explain why ex-convict Melvin A. Carter was transferred to Modoc County after his release were not known. The Modoc group remained temporarily unavailable to reporters as they continued discussions with officials of the Department of Corrections, the agency that picked Carter’s destination.

Prior to meeting with the delegation, the governor, in his first extended comments on the case since Carter’s release, stood by the decision, noting that nowhere in California would such an infamous criminal be welcomed.

Carter, 49, who was convicted of raping 12 women and confessed to dozens more, was paroled Thursday after serving half of a 25-year prison sentence. He is housed at the Devil’s Garden Conservation Camp, a state minimum security facility outside Alturas, the Modoc County seat.

Wilson, asked if the meeting between the Modoc County residents and corrections officials would result in Carter’s transfer to another part of the state, replied at his news conference: “I would greatly doubt it.”

Although Modoc County residents have aimed their anger Wilson’s way, the governor said he did not target their county as the place to put Carter. Wilson said he only told the Corrections Department not to put Carter in a “densely populated” urban area.

“I didn’t give them a specific instruction as to where,” Wilson said. “I set up the kind of circumstances I thought would provide maximum protection. The department found this particular location.”

Wilson also dismissed a report that one of Carter’s victims now lives in Modoc County, not far from the state-run work camp where the onetime engineer has been placed.

“This is a man who claims he raped a hundred women, and they are probably all over the state,” Wilson said. “We don’t know where they are. We have to put him somewhere.”

Modoc County Dist. Atty. Ruth Sorensen said the woman contacted her Friday through a mutual friend. Sorensen said the woman was a student at Cal State Hayward 16 years ago when a man broke into her home and raped her.

“She moved to Modoc County in hopes of finding peace of mind, feeling safe,” Sorensen said. “She married. She’d managed to put things back together, then heard about this.”

Tip Kindel, a spokesman for the Corrections Department, said his office needs to hear directly from the victim. “This took the department completely by surprise,” Kindel said.

Sorensen said the woman, whose name was not released, is sending a statement to the department. With the state rejecting the county’s more general pleas, the prosecutor said the victim’s complaint may be the last opportunity to have Carter sent elsewhere.

Last week, Sorensen obtained a Modoc County Superior Court order barring Carter’s release in the region. Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren quickly sought to invalidate the order, and Friday won a temporary stay of its enforcement from the 3rd District Court of Appeal.

On Monday, Sorensen filed a reply, asserting that corrections officials had violated state law by failing to make written findings for sending Carter to Modoc and failed to provide local authorities with notice of his parole.

Times staff writer Jenifer Warren contributed to this article.