FIRST ON FOX: 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.
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.
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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. Police say there may be more victims and are asking for help from the public. (El Cajon Police Department)
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.”
With information obtained from Cantrell, 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 Mayor Bill Wells told Fox News Digital that two of the girls were believed to be as young as 13.
Police are asking for the public’s help identifying additional victims as the investigation moves forward.
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Separately, Wells said Monday, another voucher recipient was arrested after allegedly fleeing police and tossing a bag of meth. The accused drug dealer had previously been paying for his own room and board when a county-aligned contractor offered to enroll him in the voucher program for 18 months, according to authorities.
“The overconcentration of individuals experiencing homelessness in motels without supervision is a bad formula,” City Manager Graham Mitchell said in a statement Monday.
For months, city officials, including Wells and Mitchell, have been sounding the alarm over the voucher program, which grew out of a dispute over a homeless encampment just outside the city limits.
Two California sex offenders are accused of trafficking girls at a hotel in El Cajon, where one of them had been placed as part of a voucher program to house the homeless, according to authorities. (iStock)
“We don’t allow encampments in the city, so as soon as it turned into county [jurisdiction] there was this massive encampment that was getting worse and worse, and there was sex trafficking,” Wells told Fox News Digital Monday. “So we put pressure on the county, and they eventually shut it down.”
Unknown to city officials at the time, he said, was that nonprofit groups subsequently used the voucher program to place the homeless in hotels – about half of them in El Cajon, the same community that was asking for help with the issue.
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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.
“I am 100% sure they’re punishing us for being conservative,” Wells said.
So the city attempted to enforce zoning rules that limited hotel homeless housing to 25% of capacity – and received a cease-and-desist letter from California Attorney General Robert Bonta, Wells said.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent El Cajon officials a cease-and-desist letter when they attempted to limit hotel homeless housing to 25% of capacity, according to Mayor Bill Wells. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
“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.”
Wells has called an emergency city council meeting for Tuesday, where he said officials would go over their options on what to do next.
“We wanted to avoid a lawsuit with the state of California because it would be millions of dollars, but at this point I don’t think we have any other choice,” he said.
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The council is expected to consider its options and then vote.
El Cajon police have filed new drug charges against Cantrell and child pornography and parole violation charges against Inman. Additional charges could be forthcoming, according to authorities.
Both men were being held in the San Diego County Jail.
