Says If He Stays, He's Likely to be Arrested Again

Los Angeles (KNX1070 Newsradio)  -- Self-proclaimed pedophile Jack McClellan says he's leaving California.

On Friday a judge modified a restraining order against McClellan and ordered him to stay at least 10 yards from places where children congregate, including schools, playgrounds and child care centers over the next three years. 

That was a slight relaxing of the original order issued on August 3rd, which said he couldn't be within 10 yards of children anywhere in California. But it still sharply restricts the public places he can go.

Saturday night, McClellan told reporters ``I have to leave the state, really, I mean I can't live here under this Orwellian protocol, whatever you want to call it, it's just nightmarish." 

He said that if he stays in the state any longer, he'll eventually violate the court order and end up back in jail. He did not say exactly where he plans to go next, but indicated it might be somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

McClellan, a 45-year-old transient who has been living out of his car, was arrested for allegedly violating the order on Aug. 13 when he was found outside an Infant Development Center at UCLA. He was later released but arrested a second time later that night when he returned to the campus to do an interview with a local TV station.

McClellan was jailed until Tuesday, when the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office decided not to pursue criminal charges on grounds that McClellan had not been properly notified of all the terms of the restraining order.

McClellan had run a Web site featuring pictures he has taken in public of pre-pubescent girls, and information on where to find them. But that site has since been shut down.

McClellan has said he is sexually attracted to children but has never tried to molest a child because it is against the law, and that the restraining order is like prosecuting him for a ``thought crime.'' He says the order also violates his First Amendment right to free speech, and that he's been threatened as a result of the publicity surrounding his case.