Serial Rapist, a Pasadena Native, Set to Be Released

The District Attorney’s Office filed an emergency writ on Tuesday to vacate a judge’s order to release a Pasadena native who admitted to raping about 40 women between 1971 and 1982, back to Los Angeles County.

Christopher Evans Hubbart was born in Pasadena in 1951 and lived there for the first six years of his life, when he moved to Claremont, here he lived until 1971, according to the D.A.’s petition.

The petition argues that Hubbart’s domicile for legal purposes should be either Santa Clara County, where he lived for years, or San Bernardino County, where he was last returned from parole.

Hubbart, who was arrested in 1972 in Los Angeles, was deemed a “mentally disordered sex offender” and sent to Atascadero State Hospital. He was released in 1979 after doctors said he posed no further threat.
Over the next two years he raped another 15 women in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to court documents. He was again imprisoned, then paroled in 1990. Hubbart subsequently was returned to prison after he accosted a woman in Santa Clara County.

He admitted raping about 40 women between 1971 and 1982, according to a 2004 opinion filed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Hubbart currently is being held at Coalinga State Hospital in Santa Clara County. His attorneys have argued that his detention violates his rights to due process.

In May, Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Gilbert Brown ruled that Hubbart should be released from prison.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey said that last week her office had begun notifying Hubbart’s Los Angeles victims of his potential release. Hubbart is not set to be released until November.

A prosecutor in Santa Clara County said Hubbart, if released, would be under strict supervision, including electronic monitoring, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“Our ultimate goal is to seek justice for all residents of Los Angeles County and make sure sexually violent predators remain in custody,” Lacey said. “This inmate has a long history
of horrific violence against women and we must act to keep our community safe.”