Tibor Karsai registers as transient sex offender

Convicted rapist Tibor Karsai has been released from Coalinga State Hospital and has registered as a transient sex offender in northern Santa Barbara County.

A sheriff’s department spokesperson said 60-year-old Karsai will be living in a motor home in several remote locations in northern Santa Barbara County.

He will have a GPS device attached, and will be monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Karsai will be watchedby guards.

Karsai was convicted of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old female in 1975 and was sentenced to eight years but paroled in 1980. Later that year, he was convicted of the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl, which occurred in Auburn, California. He was sentenced to 26 years.

In 1985, Karsai and a fellow inmate escaped from Donovan Vocational Institution in San Diego, California and were arrested a short time later. He returned to prison for an additional seven-year term.

Although his release from prison was delayed for more than 20 months during multiple legal challenges from the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office, the California State Supreme Court determined on March 26 that Karsai would be released to Santa Barbara County.

According to the sheriff’s department that is anywhere west of Paradise Rd. in the Santa Ynez Valley and north of the Gaviota tunnel.

“The sheriff’s department is notifying the public because we want them to be aware that this individual is in our community, but at the same time we don’t want to alarm people. He has actually got more monitoring and more surveillance and tighter control than other sex offenders that are living in our communities,” said Santa Barbara County Sheriff Lt. Erik Rainey.

Because Karsai is registered as a transient sex offender, he is required to register with the sheriff’s office every month as opposed to every year like sex offenders with permanent addresses.