Convicted sexual predator returns to California: ‘Don’t try to grab him or attack him’
Police in Northern California are warning locals not to resort to violence against a convicted sexual predator who has returned to the state.
“We are aware that Daniel Selovich (Pirate) is back in Redding,” police in the Shasta County city wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. “He was contacted by officers earlier in the day and is not currently wanted for any crimes.”
The convicted rapist — who was sentenced to four years behind bars for a 2004 Redding rape, and faced brutal rape accusations in Alaska — “legally changed his name to Pirate [and] was recently released from prison in Nevada, where he was serving a sentence for the 2004 rape of a disabled woman in a motel room,” Bay Area News Group reports.
Sgt. Todd Cogle of the Redding Police Department advised the community not to go after him, according to KRCR, which reported that Pirate “has made it clear he wants to stay.”
But his return has locals on edge.
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“Everybody that I’m passing, if I see somebody that is potentially homeless, I’m watching to see if it’s possibly him,” said David Walker, who lives in Redding, according to KHSL.
The police Facebook post about Pirate coming back to Redding has been shared more than 300 times, racking up more than 400 comments from concerned members of the community. The photo police shared shows the man’s distinctive tattoos, which cover nearly his entire face.
“Don’t try to grab him or attack him if you see Pirate out and about,” Cogle said, according to KRCR. “I live here and I have loved ones here as well. I know it’s worrying to know that he is on the streets but he is a free man. You have to treat him like every other man you see on the street.”
When Pirate was released from prison in 2015 following the Redding sentence, he moved to the Alaska interior region, where he was accused of keeping a woman in captivity at a remote cabin where he tortured and sexually assaulted her, according to Bay Area News Group — but “when the alleged victim died of a drug overdose shortly before the trial was to start, the charges were dismissed.”
Pirate’s reappearance in California this month came after he traveled to Alaska late last year, where he “started popping up on local dating websites — apparently out of prison, back in Alaska, ready for another try at living in the wilderness and seemingly recruiting women to join him,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.
KRCR reported that, since his return to Redding, “Pirate has reached out to [police] about how he feels he’s not safe.”
“He has a substantial criminal history and at this point he has paid his debt for what he’s been convicted of,” Cogle said, according to the TV station.
