CONVICTED RAPIST SET FOR RELEASE; MAN GUILTY IN A.V. CASE.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Daily News Staff Writer

Convicted rapist Donald Bartsma, whose scheduled 1994 parole provoked an uproar in the Antelope Valley, will be released from prison next month after serving most of his three-year parole behind bars.

Bartsma, who was convicted in 1988 of kidnapping a Lancaster woman off the street and raping her at gunpoint, is scheduled to be released Nov. 16 from the California Medical Facility at Vacaville.

He will be released to serve the one day of parole he has remaining, then will be free to go wherever he wants, officials said.

``He will have served the maximum time in prison. He will be free to go where he chooses,'' said Christine May, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman. ``The only requirement is if he stays in California, he must register as a sex offender with the local law enforcement agency.

``We don't have any option,'' she said. ``That's the way the law was written when he committed his crime.''

If Bartsma registers with a local law enforcement agency as a sex offender, local officials then will determine whether to invoke provisions of the federal ``Megan's Law'' and inform the community about Bartsma, May said.

State prison officials said they will notify law enforcement officials about Bartsma's release.

``He will not be in Lancaster or Palmdale that one day we have him,'' said Levan Bell, Department of Corrections regional administrator. ``We have no jurisdiction after Nov. 17.''

Labeled by state corrections officials as a ``high-risk sex offender,'' Bartsma was scheduled to be released in April 1994 to his mother's Lancaster home, but the release was revoked after he failed a psychiatric evaluation.

Residents organized a picket campaign at his mother's house, but backed off after receiving word he had been returned to prison. For each of the past three years, Bartsma had been ordered to spend an additional year in prison undergoing psychiatric treatment.

In April 1994, at an evaluation before his scheduled release, Bartsma told a prison psychiatrist that he had dreams of raping and murdering women, according to a law enforcement bulletin leaked to news organizations.

Bartsma had formed a plan to kidnap a woman, take her to a house in the desert near Lancaster, and keep her in a cage while he raped and tortured her, the bulletin said. He then planned to kill her and bury her body.

Bartsma was sentenced to 10 years, four months in prison for the 1988 conviction. The rape occurred three months after Bartsma was released from the California Youth Authority for a sex crime involving a teen-age girl, records show.

The laws dealing with people who commit violent sex crimes have been strengthened significantly since Bartsma's conviction, May said.

Bartsma was sentenced under laws where set prison terms were handed out, and once a person served his time, he was released. A prisoner also could get half his sentence off for good behavior or doing work, May said.

Now, people convicted of violent sex crimes can be sentenced to up to life in prison and can get only 15 percent off a sentence for good behavior, May said.

``There is no automatic parole,'' May added. A prisoner must convince the parole board that he is ready to be released into society, she said.