RAPIST PAROLED IN LANCASTER ODDS SLIM HE'LL BE MOVED.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Less than an hour before sheriff's deputies were scheduled to hit the streets to hand out fliers about a paroled rapist living in a downtown neighborhood, parole agents pulled him out of his apartment and moved him to Lancaster, officials said.

The move was apparently an effort to avoid the community outrage sparked last May by Orange County parolee Eldon West moving into an apartment building on Fifth Street East. State officials said the move seemed necessary for parolee Ismael Gabriel Lopez's own safety.

``Parole decided to move him out,'' said investigative aide Nancy Dopirak, who registers sex offenders in the Palmdale sheriff's station jurisdiction. ``They didn't want to go through that again, I guess,'' she said, referring to the protests sparked by West's placement.

Lopez, who has spent most of his life in prison for crimes ranging from drunk driving and strong-arm robbery to possession of a controlled substance and two rapes, registered Thursday morning at the Palmdale station as a sex offender, as he is required to do under state law.

On Friday morning, sheriff's officials were preparing fliers to be distributed that afternoon to residents within a half-mile of Lopez's home. About 11:30 a.m., Dopirak was contacted by state parole officials, who told her that Lopez was going to be moved.

``I told them I wouldn't post him (notify residents) as soon as I had verification that he had moved,'' Dopirak said.

By 12:30 p.m. Dopirak had been told that Lopez had been moved to an undisclosed location in Lancaster.

A state parole spokesman, who asked not to be named, said the department moved Lopez to Lancaster for his own safety, fearing possible acts of vigilantism.

Local officials denounced Lopez's placement in Palmdale, which they say was done to meet a state law that says sex offenders cannot be paroled within 35 miles of their victims.

``For this valley and our community to be a dumping ground for these people, we must tell parole officials that it's just not acceptable,'' Councilman Mike Dispenza said Friday.

Assemblyman George Runner, who arranged West's relocation out of the valley within a day after local authorities learned he was in Palmdale, said Lopez would not be as easy to remove as West was.

West had been brought to Palmdale from Orange County because of community protests there. According to state law, a parolee must be released in the county in which he was convicted. Lopez's last crime was committed in Covina, which is in Los Angeles County.

``We don't have the ability to challenge the system,'' Runner said. ``This one is really going to be driven by the concerns of the community.''

Lopez was convicted in January 1978 for the rape the previous year of a 17-year-old girl in Buena Park. He was released in July 1979 on parole.

In 1985, Lopez was convicted of sexually assaulting a Covina teen- ager, and spent six years in prison. Parole violations and fresh convictions kept him behind bars on and off until September.

In October, he was placed in a hotel in Lancaster, where he remained until his move to Palmdale earlier this week.

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