Over DA objection, judge allowed diversion for Lafayette man charged with holding family hostage. He’s now a fugitive

He is believed to be in the Bay Area

A Lafayette man is on the run after fleeing a hotel room where he’d been staying as part of a mental health diversion program he’d begun weeks before to settle charges of holding a family hostage inside their apartment for hours.

Kenneth David McIsaac, 32, was charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, robbery, burglary, and child abuse last year. He was imprisoned for a year while the case was pending until Judge Julia Campins ruled last month that McIsaac qualified for a mental health diversion program that allowed him to stay in a hotel but required him to submit to drug testing and other supervision.

According to court records, McIsaac now has a no-bail warrant for his arrest.

Prosecutors in Contra Costa County objected to placing him in the diversion program, as did the woman who McIsaac allegedly held hostage with her husband and children last year. According to authorities, they escaped because they were able to break free from duct tape bonds and overpower McIsaac.

A deputy district attorney read aloud a statement from the Lafayette woman, who said her children are still afraid and that the justice system “failed” her at a Sept. 5 court hearing.

“While holding us hostage, he admitted that he had been spying on me and my children for two months.” “He was surprised to learn that I had a husband and that he was home at the time,” the woman says in her statement. “This was obviously a premeditated crime.”

In response to prosecutors’ objections, Campins stated that she believed diversion would better address McIsaac’s underlying mental illness than the prison system. According to a transcript of the hearing, McIsaac’s lawyer stated that he was in a “very intensive” residential treatment program that would ensure community safety.

“If properly done and properly managed, it is actually safer to have someone receive treatment and guidance through this process than place them in prison for a period of time with no such treatment and then released,” Campins went on to say.

Authorities are unable to reveal the location of the hotel room McIsaac left in violation of his diversion conditions, but he is believed to be in the Bay Area.

On September 24, 2022, McIsaac allegedly broke into a Lafayette apartment, forced the family to be tied up at gunpoint, and held them hostage for five hours until they were able to break free. According to court records, McIsaac lived in the same apartment complex, and a search of his apartment revealed an oddity: McIsaac had tinted out a single window overlooking a path frequented by other residents, save for an eyehole that he allegedly used to spy on others.

The Lafayette family has filed a lawsuit against Essex, the complex’s property trust, alleging that McIsaac was known to drink heavily in the hot tub and had been suspected of lewd behavior. In its civil complaint, the business is alleged to have “never advertised or disclosed that at the Lafayette Highlands apartment a certain tenant was permitted to wander around naked except for his bathrobe, masturbate in public, get drunk in the hot tub, knock randomly on apartment doors and stalk single mothers and their children.”

McIsaac had been charged with assaulting a family member in Alameda County two years prior. He was eventually sentenced to six days in jail and two years probation, which he completed just two months before the Lafayette incident.

McIsaac qualified for the program as a result of a new state law designed to divert people with mental illnesses who would otherwise be incarcerated. The law makes exceptions for accused murderers and people charged with sex crimes, which adds to the case’s controversy.

Daniel Horowitz, an attorney in Lafayette who represents the family allegedly held hostage by McIsaac, has argued that prosecutors should have charged McIsaac with assault with intent to commit rape, which would have disqualified McIsaac from the diversion program. Prosecutors countered that they filed 12 felony charges and opposed diversion, and that the evidence did not support filing a sex charge.

In a phone interview, the woman stated that McIsaac entered the house with wine and played with her hair during the ordeal, which she interpreted as sexual.

“He didn’t come to rob; otherwise, he’d rob and then leave.” “He came, as he said, ‘for fun,'” the woman explained. “I’m afraid some other family won’t be as lucky as me.”