STAY AWAY FROM KIDS, PEDOPHILE TOLD JUDGE ORDERS WEB 'SURROGATE STALKER' TO KEEP 30 FEET FROM CHILDREN.

Byline: BETH BARRETT and BARBARA CORREA

Staff Writers

A high-profile, Los Angeles-area admitted pedophile was barred Friday from being within 30 feet of any minor in the Golden State -- making it nearly impossible for him to continue living in California.

The temporary restraining order by Chatsworth Superior Court Judge Melvin D. Sandvig was applauded by attorneys from Santa Clarita as a broad victory for parents throughout the state trying to protect their children from sexual predators.

"The judge clobbered Jack McClellan," said a jubilant Anthony D. Zinnanti, a Valencia attorney who sought the order on behalf of his daughter after McClellan was spotted last month at a Santa Clarita bowling alley.

"Jack McClellan is not to be around any minor child in the state of California. He is not to loiter, follow, stalk, threaten, harass, shadow, photograph, anything. Jack, stay away from the kids or you're going to jail."

The ruling Friday morning set off a feverish race by attorneys to serve the elusive McClellan with the order before he could flee the state.

By midafternoon, Zinnanti had tracked McClellan to Los Angeles International Airport, where airport police pulled him off an American Airlines plane about to leave for Chicago, said attorney Richard Patterson, who joined Zinnanti in pursuing the case.

Patterson said McClellan was headed to the Windy City, where he was scheduled to tape a TV show of a face-off with angry moms.

After being escorted back to the terminal, McClellan was served with the order and allowed to get back on the plane.

McClellan must return for an Aug. 24 hearing on a preliminary injunction, a step toward making the order permanent.

In a telephone interview with the Daily News less than an hour before Friday's hearing, McClellan said he had been thinking about leaving the Los Angeles area since the Santa Monica Police Department posted his mug shot online last week.

He said he might consider returning to the Seattle area, although pressure from parents there helped drive him from Washington state.

"I've been getting recognized everywhere now ... This guy on the bus threatened to mess me up," he said. "This car has been completely identified, especially with the Washington plates.

"I was thinking of maybe going to San Diego, but I don't think there's anywhere I can go."

McClellan said he spent Friday morning at the Culver City Public Library recharging his cell phone, which had been without power for two days.

He said that by the time he retrieved his voice-mail messages, it was too late to attend the Friday morning hearing in Chatsworth.

McClellan, 45, has not been convicted of any crimes relating to pedophilia, but he operated a Web site that listed and rated various locations for watching children. He also has admitted in television interviews that he is sexually attracted to young girls.

McClellan, who relocated to Southern California this year, said Friday that he lives in his car and collects about $950 a month in Social Security income for mental disabilities.

While McClellan's Web site has been shut down, Southern California parents quickly banded together last month after McClellan was spotted in the bowling alley and the children's section of a Santa Monica library.

In issuing his order, Sandvig went significantly beyond the attorneys' request to protect children in Santa Clarita from McClellan.

In their petition, Patterson and Zinnanti had emphasized they were seeking to restrain "abhorrent" conduct, not free speech.

"We left a big, open space for the judge to write in what he thought was just," Zinnanti said.

But some legal experts criticized the judge's ruling and predicted it would be found unconstitutional.

"There's no showing he's done anything wrong ... You can't punish somebody unless you've proven they've done something wrong. You can't restrain them unless you can show there's a substantial likelihood they'll engage in harmful behavior," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor at Duke Law School.

Chemerinsky said that while society's concern over pedophiles is warranted, the order goes to "absurd lengths."

Bethan Tuttle, director of legislation and policy at the Washington branch of Mothers Against Sex Predators, also said the judge's order could set a troubling precedent if states begin to force pedophiles deeper into the shadows of society.

"As outrageous as his behavior has been, it doesn't warrant his expulsion from a state," Tuttle said. "He's not a criminal until he commits a crime, or there's legislation that formalizes society's objection to his behavior."

She said turning pedophiles into outcasts could backfire.

"The more you marginalize people, ... the more likely they are to actually commit crimes. They don't feel associated with the society that rejected them, so why keep society's rules?"

But on Friday, some Santa Clarita parents celebrated the judge's order.

Chris Campbell, who was at the courthouse with her 5- and 8-year-old daughters, said the order was a huge relief and reflected the community's stance against McClellan: "We're not going to take it."

And Jane Thompson, a co-founder of Mothers Against Sexual Predators of California, called the order a tremendous victory.

"Everyone was floored -- in a good way," said Thompson, who attended the hearing and was among mothers who in June began circulating fliers with McClellan's picture at parks in the region.

"I feel like it is evidence that stay-at-home moms, or moms in general, can make a difference in enacting social change."

Lena Smyth -- who formed the group with Thompson and is the wife of Assemblyman Cameron Smyth, R-Santa Clarita -- said the order is a victory for the organization.

Assemblyman Smyth has begun drafting a bill that would criminalize "surrogate stalking" -- or providing information that helps pedophiles perpetrate crimes against children.

On Friday, Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, said she is working on emergency legislation that would make it a crime for any person to establish or maintain a Web site that gives pedophiles a way of locating and stalking children.

"We want to go on and get the legislation passed so that others like Jack McClellan cannot be surrogate stalkers of our children," Lena Smyth said.

"We know who Jack McClellan is -- now this goes beyond him and we want to continue the effort."

beth.barrett(at)dailynews.com

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