Rossmoor home of defrocked priest searched as part of countywide sex registrant check

A Rossmoor reader told me that just before 5pm [Thursday], there was what appeared to be police activity at the Rossmoor apartment building which is home to Stephen Kiesle, the 63-year-old former priest who is now at the center of the latest round of questions over the Vatican's handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal.

"There were at least five police vehicles, most unmarked cars, but all working together. Those cars contained at least nine law enforcement types," the resident said. "Several police personnel went in and out of the building, emerging with what looked like computers and data in large rolling briefcases or containers,
the kind lawyers come to court with the day of trial. These containers were loaded into the police vehicles."

Walnut Creek Police Capt. Timothy Schultz confirms that law enforcement visited Kiesle's home. In fact, his was one of many homes visited by local law enforcement Thursday afternoon in what is a countywide “sex registrant check."

Kiesle, who left the church in 1987, is listed as a registrant with the state Department of Justice. Kiesle was first sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after being  convicted of tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay Area church refrectory. In 2002, Kiesle was arrested and charged with 13 counts of child molestation in the 1970s. He pleaded no contest in 2004 to a felony charge for molesting a young girl in Truckee in 1995 and was sentenced to six years in state prison.

Schultz says the check was conducted as part of the S.A.F.E. (Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement) Task Force concept that law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County have utilized for several years," he says, adding that the original idea for this concept was proposed by a Walnut Creek police detective.

Sgt. Kelly Challand, who heads the task force, said the parole search of Kiesle's home, by a coordinated multi-agency effort, found that Kiesle was in full compliance with sex offender laws: Challand said: "There was nothing indicated which would require a follow-up investigation on his part. He is on active parole and will continue to be monitored by the California Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections."