Lawrence "Larry" Cantrell, 34, and Michael Inman, 70, accused of raping minor girls. (Photo: El Cajon Police Department)
Homeless Voucher Scheme: 2 Sex Offenders Accused of Raping Minor Girls at El Cajon Motel
Taxpayer-funded homeless voucher scandal in El Cajon: ‘We’ve got a lot of criminals in this group of people’
By Katy Grimes, March 21, 2023 5:08 pm
Two girls believed to be as young as 13 were allegedly raped by two convicted sex offenders wearing ankle monitors at a Motel 6 in El Cajon participating in a motel voucher program that temporarily houses homeless.
In September, the Globe reported on the homeless voucher program in El Cajon, in San Diego County: “There are 18 motels in San Diego County participating in the homeless hotel voucher program – eight of them, 44%, are located in El Cajon.”
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells, El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell and Police Chief Mike Moulton objected and said the County “is saturating El Cajon with homeless and hotel vouchers,” with no prior notice or warning to the city. They contacted the County asking them to spread their voucher-using homeless throughout the county, rather than sending the bulk of them to El Cajon. “We have the second highest poverty level in the county,” City Manager Mitchell said. “We also have the most immigrants,” noting the special circumstances these groups face, as well as reliance on the city and county.
In September, the City sent letters to these motels, telling them they could face fines if they allow homeless vouchers to make up more than 15% of their occupancy.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta intervened and told the City to cease and desist with their 15% homeless voucher occupancy policy. The AG claimed in his letter that this was a discrimination and a fair housing issue. Specifically, the AG said: “Discrimination based on source of income is a civil right.”
The Globe asked, “Are the homeless transients now a protected class in California?”
Fast forward to today, as Fox News reported:
Police arrested a pair of California sex offenders over the weekend after they allegedly admitted to raping an underage girl, recording part of the encounter on video and claimed to have attacked other girls in recent days, according to police in El Cajon.
Lawrence “Larry” Cantrell, 34, and Michael Inman, 70, are accused of raping a girl, believed to be between 13 and 16, in Cantrell’s Motel 6 bedroom last week, where he was staying as part of a voucher program for the homeless.
El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells told Fox News Digital that two of the girls were believed to be as young as 13.
This is exactly what the Mayor, City Manager and Police Chief were so concerned about when we spoke in September. “The City and police department say the AG is overstepping, as this is not about refusing to help the homeless, but an actual serious public safety issue with the dramatically increasing crime from the homeless transients,” the Globe reported.
The Attorney General’s office said in the September letter:
“The City’s actions cannot stand. The City’s conduct constitutes unlawful discrimination in direct contravention of the Fair Employment and Housing Act. Our office hereby demands that the City immediately (1) rescind the warning notices, (2) agree to refrain from issuing such notices in the future, (3) publicly state that hotels will not be subjected to adverse action from the City for accepting such vouchers and (4) order its law enforcement officers to immediately cease any unlawful harassment of hotel guests at participating hotels.”
Such an interesting choice of language: the homeless transients are now “hotel guests” at participating homeless hotels paid for by California taxpayers.
El Cajon Police Department received so many calls for service to these motels, this resulted in more than 40 arrests in four days of transients who are felons with long rap sheets, with outstanding warrants, and who are dealing drugs.
Chief Moulton said at the time, the escalation of increased calls was a huge impact to the department. For context, he said in 2013 they received 2,800 calls about homeless crimes and incidents. It peaked in 2018 at 9,000. Since that time (2019-2021) they have been right at 7,500 a year. This is a direct correlation to passage of Propositions 47 and 57, Chief Moulton added.
“While the voucher program has placed as many as 50% of the homeless voucher recipients in El Cajon hotels, the city accounts for only 3% of the county’s population, Wells said,” Fox reported.
“I am 100% sure they’re punishing us for being conservative,” Wells said.
When the City sent letters to these motels, telling them they could face fines if they allow homeless vouchers to make up more than 15% of their occupancy, this elicited immediate reaction by San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, challenging the Mayor, City Manager and Chief of Police. “Our County is making historic investments in supporting the unsheltered in our region, and will not allow the actions of the City of El Cajon to push more people onto the street. We will fight for what is right,” Fletcher tweeted.
Fox reported:
Both men were placed into housing by People Assisting The Homeless, or PATH, a homeless services provider in San Diego, according to authorities.
A PATH employee called police on Friday to report Cantrell’s “suspicious behavior,” police said. Cantrell then allegedly admitted to child molestation and told officers he had a video on his phone.
PATH had placed Cantrell in the El Cajon Motel 6 for about five to six days before the crime, police said. Prior to that, he was kicked out of another hotel voucher program due to an “altercation.”
Police said they arrested Inman at a Days Inn in San Diego – where he allegedly told them he knew the girl was underage and that he and Cantrell had victimized at least two other girls in El Cajon in the past week.
El Cajon Police Department issued the following information about the suspects:
Officers from the El Cajon Police Department responded to the motel and spoke with Cantrell, who admitted to having sexual contact with a girl he believed to be a minor. Cantrell told officers that his friend, 70 y/o Michael Inman, a sex registrant he met through PATH while staying at the Days Inn hotel on Ash St. in San Diego, brought a young girl that Cantrell believed to be a minor, to his room. Cantrell questioned the young girl about her age multiple times because he believed her to be a juvenile. Cantrell told officers the young girl claimed to be an adult, but he believed she was a minor. After a short conversation, Cantrell sexually assaulted and molested the minor. Afterward, Cantrell and Inman engaged in sexual activity with each other. Cantrell learned that
Inman had an explicit video of the minor from inside the motel room on his cell phone, so Cantrell sent the video from Inman’s phone to his own cell phone. Cantrell turned his cell phone over to officers and they confirmed Cantrell had a sexually explicit video of what appeared to be a juvenile female with Inman. Officers seized Cantrell’s phone. Cantrell provided officers with identifying information for Inman.
Proposition 57, passed in 2016, allowed early release of not only nonviolent felons, but also sex offenders and three strikers, which explains Cantrell and Inman being out of prison.
El Cajon attempted enforcing zoning rules limiting hotel homeless housing to 25% of capacity – and received a cease-and-desist letter from California Attorney General Robert Bonta, Wells said.
Every day, millions of Californians worry about keeping a roof over their head
The City of El Cajon’s recent actions threaten to turn some of San Diego County’s most vulnerable residents out onto the street based solely on their source of income
No more https://t.co/fHP1aZTBUm
— Rob Bonta (@RobBonta) September 25, 2022
“We had to kind of back off at that point, and that’s when the voucher program kind of increased,” Wells said. “That’s when I said this is gonna be bad. We’ve got a lot of criminals in this group of people.”
Graham Mitchell, El Cajon’s City Manager commented on the recent crime:
“Months ago, El Cajon officials expressed concern regarding the overuse of El Cajon motels being used for the homeless vouchers. We observed negative impacts on surrounding neighborhoods as El Cajon became the region’s dumping ground. Our calls for concern were ignored. Even the State Attorney General’s office was used to stop El Cajon from protecting its community. In the past four months, a teen shot in the head at a motel and sex offenders engaging in and recording themselves having sex with a teen in another motel. Both of these tragedies, and others, are connected to housing the homeless in El Cajon motels with little to no supervision. Hopefully, regional leaders and homeless service agencies can see what the El Cajon community has seen: The overconcentration of individuals experiencing homelessness in motels without supervision is a bad formula.”
And now underage girls as young as 13 appear to have been raped by repeat sex offenders.
What does AG Bonta have to say about this? Are Cantrell and Inman “some of San Diego’s most vulnerable residents?”
Does San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher, who insisted he would “fight for what is right,” have anything to say about the underage victims? Is this San Diego “making historic investments” by supporting homeless sex offenders?
The Globe sent requests for comment to both Bonta’s and Fletcher’s offices. We received an email statement right before we published from Chuck Westerheide, San Diego County Public Safety Group Communications Department:
“The alleged crimes committed in this case are horrible and we want to do everything possible to locate and help the victims. Crimes against youth are particularly disturbing and we are committed to maintaining public safety and seeking accountability on behalf of the victims of violent crime.
Our housing partners alerted law enforcement to the alleged criminal activity which led to the arrests. We know housing is a critical need for many people in our community, including those who are justice involved. We will continue to seek housing options for unhoused residents of San Diego County while also addressing the root causes of criminal behavior.
The County is cooperating with law enforcement on this investigation.”
We will report back when we receive a reply from AG Bonta’s office.
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First of all my heart deeply aches for the 13 year old girl who was raped!
Her life has now forever been changed, I pray she gets the help and support she will need to heal.
AG Bonta has once again demonstrated he does not believe in law and order for the everyday person. Special treatment has been sanctified by this state for repeat sex offenders that were given early release from the prison system.
This program needs to be halted. Sex offenders need to remain in jail where they do have a cot and 3 squares!
Bonta and Newsom should join them there!
The homeless voucher program has placed as many as 50% of the homeless voucher recipients in El Cajon hotels yet the city accounts for only 3% of the county’s population? How is that right or fair? If Democrat San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher really wants to “fight for what is right,” then maybe he should shelter some homeless in his upscale San Diego home that he shares with his controversial union boss wife Lorena Gonzalez? Fletcher switched his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat midway through his first mayoral campaign in 2013. Fletcher was appointed to the California Air Resources Board by Gov. Newsom on January 28, 2019. The only white males who are left in the Democrat party are corrupt to the core?
It is not fair and it is not right to place the burden on a suburb of San Diego.
These so called civil servants have the ultimate responsibility to protect the well bing of their citizens!
You reminded me of the ill will of Nathan Fletcher and his crooked wife Lorena Gonzalez, they should also share a jail cell with Bonta and Newsom.
This is horrible, horrible, beyond words. Decent people EVERYWHERE will be as horrified and outraged to learn about it as we have been. And every decent person who knows the background of what went on here could have also seen it coming. Why didn’t Gov Gavin Newsom, A.G. Rob Bonta, and Supervisor Nathan Fletcher? Or DID they see it coming and simply NOT CARE, instead purposely choosing —- apparently in a spirit of malice and spite and to punish a conservative town —- to issue self-righteous edicts and threats to the mayor and police chief of El Cajon in response to those officials’ desperate entreaties? Have they no shame or conscience AT ALL? But we already know the answer to that, don’t we.
I was first going to say that now we will see Newsom, Bonta, and Fletcher run for cover in the wake of this ghastly crime —– that they should have seen coming and all but set up to happen —- but now I’m wondering if they will even have the human decency to run for cover.
In any case, if these horrific incidents don’t put an end to this game that Newsom, Bonta, Fletcher and their ilk have been playing, put an end to Props 47 and 57, put an end to this practice of dumping violent criminals in hotels and motels and calling it “compassion,” then what WILL put an end to it, for God’s sake?
Until California citizens start calling these democrats, what they are, “Criminal Lovers” – this will never stop.
They need to be called “Criminal Lovers” for sure, Enough Already. Also “criminals.”
Transport them to Fair Oaks and Alameda… and remind the folks who perpetrated these Crimes Against Children
‘not to discriminate’ and give them fair housing in their own neighborhoods. File with Bonds For The Win (bondsforthewin.com) against their Surety Bonds… they need to be held accountable. They forget they took an
Oath of Office to SERVE the citizens of this State, not the other way around. This is unconscionable.
The Globe shouldn’t expect a reply from Democrat AG Bonta’s office? Bonta and his mannish looking wife Assemblywoman Mia Bonta are just as morally bankrupt and as much of a criminal duo as Gavin Newsom and his Weinstein trollop wife Jennifer Siebel?
Oh, and then there’s THIS California Globe report (Katy Grimes) from Nov of 2022:
“Thousand of California’s Convicted Pedophiles are Being Released from Prison in Less Than a Year”
https://californiaglobe.com/articles/thousands-of-californias-convicted-pedophiles-are-being-released-from-prison-in-less-than-a-year/
Parker Brothers should add another card to their Monopoly board game: “Get out of jail and rape for free.”
Really, Fed Up — a revised version of Monopoly to keep up with these terrible times we’re in. Yikes.
John & Ken @ KFI 640 AM also talked about this story today, using this article as a source and mentioning the California Globe):
https://omny.fm/shows/john-and-ken-on-demand/john-ken-show-hour-1-03-22-1
(Begin at 22:25 marker — goes for about 10 mins)
This is why I ran for State Assembly in 2022 against Mia Bonta and I am running again. Both crime and homelessness can be cleaned up if the intention is there. The key is create a productive economy, not a green drug economy. If we are building nuclear power plants, developing our agriculture, providing key manufacturing plants and our citizens can raise a family. You end homelessness. For those who are too destroyed to work or be trained we create insitutions for their life care. Second, shut down the drug cartels, that is what a good Attorney General would do. Our children need to be protected and given a real chance to develop their minds and souls. Mindy Pechenuk, Republican Candidate for 2024 State Assembly 18
Break a leg, Mindy Pechenuk – glad to see you are running again in 2024.
Thanks -I will keep you posted on the campaign. Take care, Mindy