Castrated California Child Molester Wants Freedom
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A convicted child molester who got surgically castrated to curb his urges wants to be released from custody.
Kevin Reilly won a court order and paid to have his testicles removed in 2003.
"He felt that this was the only way to stop his cravings and immoral conduct," said his attorney, Orange County Deputy Public Defender Dinah Granafei.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reilly says he has completed a sex-offender treatment program, undergone castration and is no longer a threat to children. He wants to be freed from Atascadero Mental Hospital, where he has been locked up since 2000 when the Orange County District Attorney's Office filed a petition labeling him a Sexually Violent Predator.
District Attorney Tony Rackauckas says Reilly remains a sexual predator who should remain incarcerated.
"Just because they have been castrated doesn't change what's going on in their minds," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley is presiding over a Sexually Violent Predator hearing and will decide if there is sufficient evidence to order a jury trial later this year.
Reilly has been sentenced to 14 years in prison since 1983 in three separate child molestation cases.
He has been in prison or hospitals since 1998.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Barrie Hafler, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health at Atascadero, said she knows of fewer than 20 convicted child molesters and rapists who have undergone castration in the last decade.