An 85-year-old serial sex offender refuses to follow through with his treatment, breaks rules in a state mental hospital, gets into fights and continues to fantasize about pre-pubescent boys, a prosecutor argued Monday as he tried to persuade a jury to keep the defendant locked up as a sexually violent predator.
The attorney for Sid Laundau is scheduled to begin his closing argument in the monthlong trial on Tuesday.
The jury could opt to keep Laundau committed to the state hospital in Coalinga, give him conditional release or let him go altogether.
“He needs to stay in a hospital to ensure the safety of others,” Deputy District Attorney Jeremy Hudson argued.
Nearly all of the psychiatric experts who testified in the trial agreed that Landau has pedophilic disorder, Hudson said.
“His brain is wired to see children as targets,” Hudson said. “He seems them as sex objects as targets to manipulate.”
Landau has “molested kids for decades,” Hudson said.
“He built his house to lure children,” Hudson said of Landau’s home in Anaheim near Disneyland, which he stocked with pinball machines, an air hockey table, a pool, candy and a large television.
Prosecutors have said in the past that Landau also plied the boys with drugs and alcohol.
One of Landau’s victims described it as a “kids paradise,” Hudson said.
Hudson argued that Landau has as many as 20 victims. He preferred “hairless children… That’s why he has so may victims because they would get too old for him,” Hudson said.
Landau also focused on “vulnerable children,” whose parents were splitting up, Hudson said.
“Landau is a master manipulator,” Hudson argued.
One of his victims said Landau “gets you caught in his web… He makes you think he cares about you,” Hudson said.
At the home in Anaheim he would lead “group sex” with the boys, Hudson said.
Landau would also take pictures of the boys unclothed “so he could have a keepsake,” Hudson said. “So he could victimize them over and over again.”
One boy was molested “hundreds of times,” starting when he was 10, Hudson said.
Landau was first convicted in 1982 and released from custody two years later.
“What happened when he was released was he kept molesting children,” Hudson said.
In 1988, Landau was convicted of 18 counts of child molestation, including one boy who was 9 and his father was dying of cancer, Hudson said.
Landau was released again in 1998 and he violated terms of parole by tampering with his GPS device, Hudson said. He was also caught in possession of child pornography, Hudson said.
Landau has put his heart issues behind him and “religiously exercises” at the state hospital where he resides, Hudson said. He uses his wheelchair as a sort of walker, the prosecutor added.
“He’s much more mobile than others his age,” Hudson argued.
While at Coalinga, Landau tracked down the personal phone number of one of his evaluators, Hudson said.
“He said it’s not a private number if I can find it,” Hudson said.
When it was suggested the evaluator might be frightened by a call at home, “He laughed. He still lacks empathy,” Hudson said.
Seven months later, Landau called another hospital staffer on a personal phone, Hudson said. He told a family member who answered that he knew how many children he had, Hudson said.
In 2022, Landau got into a fight at the hospital, Hudson said.
“He was still able to chase a guy down and beat him up,” Hudson said. “It took three staff members to hold him back. He was 83 years old at this time. Is this the kind of person ready for conditional release, let alone out on his own?”
Landau was caught at one point with thumb drives and SD cards, and has computer skills, Hudson argued.
“Imagine how he can contact children in this day and age,” Hudson said. “Don’t think GPS is going to make him safe. He will find a way. Nothing has stopped him before. He has re-offended every time he has gotten out.”
Landau plans to move to New York City if he is released, Hudson said.