Officials oppose release of Ventura County rapist in Joshua Tree

On Friday, San Bernardino County law enforcement officials vocalized their opposition to the release of a convicted out of area rapist and child molester in Joshua Tree.

On September 19, a Ventura County judge tentatively ordered Ross Leo Wollschlager to relocate and live in a residence in Joshua Tree.

“We know there are over 200 women and children that live within a three-mile radius of this residence,” said San Beernardino County Sheriff John McMahon in a news conference Friday. “If this individual leaves this residence to go shopping he will have to pass a school regardless of the street or roads that he takes to get to the city to shop. There’s schools and bus stops in that general area, that is our concern.”

Wollschlager was designated as a Sexually Violent Predator following a series of assaults in Ventura County in the 1980s. He was charged with four counts of rape, and ultimately convicted of two after a plea agreement. He was released in 1987, but was re-arrested while on parole after sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl while she slept in her bed in her family home.

Wollschlager was returned to the prison system, then the Department of State Hospitals for treatment.

In January, Ventura Superior Court began the process of starting Wollschlager’s conditional release, and the court found that “extraordinary circumstances” would predicate his relocation to outside of the county.

KESQ