Public notice begins for Aptos shelter site for sexually violent offenders – Santa Cruz Sentinel

SANTA CRUZ – The public bidding process has begun for the housing of a 72-year-old sex offender in Aptos, about a mile from Seabright State Beach.

Earlier this month, a Santa Cruz County Superior Court judge ordered state authorities to release the address of a home where Michael Cheek will be housed, a twice-convicted rapist who is being recommended for supervised release after spending a total of 43 years in prison and receiving mental health treatment.

The Department of State Hospitals' contractor, Liberty Healthcare Corp., first announced in May that it had identified the residence on a private road off Spreckles Drive after combing through more than 4,000 potential housing sites. A housing committee made up of representatives from the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, Santa Cruz County District Attorney's Office, Santa Cruz County Public Defender's Office, Santa Cruz County Attorney's Office and the state had been meeting about Cheek's placement since at least July 2023.

The most recent attempt to house Cheek in a house in rural Bonny Doon, as well as previous proposals for San Mateo, San Benito and Contra Costa counties, faced public opposition and were ultimately overturned. While Judge Syda Cogliati found the San Lorenzo Valley rental appropriate in a November 2021 ruling, the siting order was overturned on appeal in January 2023 because a residential school was to be built near the proposed house. At the time, Liberty officials offered to install an automatic generator, a “GPS dome” that prevents Cheek from straying more than 150 feet from the house, security fencing, an on-site security guard and four security cameras for the property in response to neighborhood concerns.

The Sexually Violent Sex Offenders Act is a civil law rather than a criminal one. It provides treatment and rehabilitation rather than punishment with the goal of safe reintegration into society, according to a Department of State Hospitals fact sheet on the release program.