Megan’s Law Coauthor Seeks Probe of E-Mail ‘Threat’

A state assemblyman who co-wrote legislation to put the Megan’s Law database of sex offenders on the Internet has asked the California Highway Patrol to investigate two aggressive e-mails he received.

Assemblyman Todd Spitzer (R-Orange) said Friday that he had received two anonymous e-mails claiming to be from a convicted sex offender angry about having the database online.

The e-mails’ author stated he was trying to rally other offenders to fight the new law, which places in the database an offender’s name, home address, picture, physical description, known aliases, gender, race, date of birth and criminal history.

The 55,000 offenders affected by the law include those convicted more than once of violent sexual crimes and others convicted once of sexual battery, rape or child molestation.

The e-mails were sent Sept. 20 and Thursday. Both were also sent to Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), coauthor of the legislation, and to Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez (D-Norwalk).

In the e-mails, the author writes, “My fellow comrades will find various ways -- some being quite extreme -- that we can fight back in order to regain what little fairness we had before Megan’s Law was enacted.”

Spitzer said Friday that he was “taking that as a direct threat to my personal safety, and I’ve asked for a criminal investigation.”

The anonymous writer stated that he was creating his own Internet database, available only to sex offenders, that would list children.

Megan’s Law is named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka of New Jersey, who was raped and killed by a neighbor in 1994.

California established its database of sex offenders two years later.