ST. PAUL (KTTC) -- Monday night the Minnesota House passed an emergency bill to close a loophole in the sex offender law.
The House passed the bill 127 to 1.
The bill is the result of the upcoming release of convicted child molester Clarence Opheim.
The 64-year-old has admitted to engaging in sexual acts with 29 children.
Opheim will soon be provisionally discharged from the St. Peter Security Hospital to a halfway house in the Twin Cities.
State law requires community notification when a sex offender moves into a new neighborhood but not if the offender moves to a halfway house.
This means that one of the worst sex offenders could be living right next door to a family, without the parents ever being notified.
The bill would require public notification upon a sex offender's discharge into any "residence facility."
Opheim is only the second person to be discharged from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program since it began.
There are no plans to move him until at least mid-March.
He'll continue treatment and be monitored by a GPS tracker.
Representative Mike Benson has been heavily involved in the process.
"It's absolutely something we needed to do very quickly," Rep. Benson said about Monday's vote.
The Senate will hear the bill on Thursday.
It would go into effect the day after it's signed into law.
