Fight Victims Were in Release Program

Two roommates involved in a knife fight that left one dead and the other wounded had been residents of state mental hospitals and were living under a conditional release program, health officials said Thursday.

Ricardo Acosta and David Ley, both 37, got into a fight Wednesday afternoon which left both battered and bleeding outside their apartment in the 100 block of East Simpson Avenue. Acosta, formerly of Imperial County, died shortly after police arrived while Ley, of Santa Barbara County, remained in stable condition in the intensive care unit at Community Memorial Hospital Thursday evening.

Police said Ley has not been arrested.

“We are looking at all the circumstances surrounding the incident,” said Lt. Quinn Fenwick, a Ventura police spokesman. “Homicides can be both lawful and unlawful.”

Both men were part of the “conditional release” or CONREP program, which takes people judged incompetent to stand trial or innocent by reason of insanity and places them in both structured and independent living situations throughout the community, police said.

Dr. David Gudeman, director of the county’s Department of Behavioral Health, said a high-level review will be conducted to ensure all procedures had been followed. He said confidentiality rules prohibit him from discussing the backgrounds of Acosta and Ley.

Gudeman described the program as successful and said each client is seen daily by caseworkers. He also said Ventura County has a state contract, valued at $400,000 to $600,000 a year, to take in the program’s clients and currently has 23.

Statewide, there are 724 active CONREP patients. Of that number, 529 were judged not guilty by reason of insanity, 29 were sex offenders 18 were incompetent to stand trial, 78 were mentally ill parolees and 70 who were not criminals and were committed because of their mental illness, according to Ray Beland, a staff mental health specialist with the state Department of Mental Health.

Beland said clients are closely monitored and subjected to unannounced home visits, urine tests and searches. Any violation, including failing to take medication, could send them back to state hospitals such as Atascadero in San Luis Obispo County or Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County.

Betty Ryerson, who operated a board and care facility for eight years in Ventura, had four or five CONREP patients and said they were among the best behaved and supervised.

“They were some of the nicest people I ever had,” she said. “It’s a wonderful program. They keep a tight hold on them. If you break a rule, you get sent back to the hospital.”