Child Molester Landau Jailed by Parole Agent

Twice-convicted child molester Sid Landau was arrested Friday on suspicion of violating the terms of his parole after allegedly assaulting a news cameraman filming him leaving an Orange hotel, state parole officials said.

Parole officials said Landau allegedly pushed the OCN cameraman to the ground in the parking lot of the Ramada Inn Disneyland South about 11:30 a.m., as the sex offender was checking out of the hotel. Orange police had warned Landau on Thursday night that they would notify nearby residents if he didn’t leave the hotel the next day.

The 57-year-old Landau was taken into custody by his own parole agent pending an investigation. He was in custody Friday afternoon at the California Institution for Men in Chino. If the state Board of Prison Terms finds that Landau did violate parole, he could be sent back to jail for as much as one year.

“There may have been some contact between him and this cameraman that may involve a parole violation,” said Hugh Nelson, deputy regional administrator for the state Department of Corrections. “We don’t know what happened exactly. There are no criminal charges filed against him. We won’t know until we investigate.”

Landau’s arrest follows a two-week period in which he was forced out of one hotel or motel after another and an odyssey that began in November, when he was released from jail and became the first target in California of a law allowing local authorities to notify residents of sex offenders in their neighborhoods.

“This has gone so far overboard, this is ridiculous now,” said Landau’s attorney, T. Matthew Phillips. “I find it suspicious that parole arrested their own client. . . . They don’t know what to do with Sid Landau. This is their solution.”

Orange police officers had visited Landau at the Ramada Inn on Thursday night to warn him of their plan to follow the lead of Placentia and Fullerton and enforce the so-called Megan’s Law, a police spokesman said.

Hotel employees said they asked police for help in evicting Landau as soon as they discovered he was staying at the Ramada.

“We want to keep our hotel safe, we don’t want him here,” Ramada manager Irene Ee said, echoing the anger that had forced Landau out of two homes in Placentia and a Fullerton motel two weeks ago.

“When he checked in, we didn’t know who he was. But when we found out, I called the police right away. I told them I didn’t want my customers to feel unsafe.”

Landau first came to broad attention in January, when Placentia police alerted neighbors to his presence. After his apartment was picketed by angry neighbors and his phone line deluged with death threats, he moved to a new address in the same city.

Eventually, protests forced Landau to move out of Placentia altogether. State parole agents sent him to a Fullerton motel. But within days of his arrival, residents there began picketing, and city officials announced they would also notify residents of Landau’s presence.

On April 11, Landau left that motel after managers refused to accept his rent check. Since then, he has stayed in more than 10 Orange County motels and hotels, often checking in under an assumed name and generally leaving after one night, state parole officials said. Two state parole agents based in Anaheim have been working with Landau nearly full-time to find him a permanent home.