LOS ANGELES -- The director of "Powder," a new Walt Disney film about a troubled teen-ager, is a convicted child molester who once videotaped himself having oral sex with a 12-year-old actor.

The film's release this Friday in 1,200 U.S. theaters has prompted the molestation victim, Nathan Winters, now 20, to go public with his ordeal to protest Disney's employment of filmmaker Victor Salva.

On Monday night, Winters and five friends picketed outside the industry screening of "Powder," handing leaflets about Salva's conviction to hundreds of grim-faced Hollywood executives leaving the theater.

"Please don't spend your money on this movie," the leaflets urged. "It would just go to line the pockets of this child molester." The friends toted signs: "Victor Salva: Writer, Director, Child Molester" and "Support the Victim, not the Victimizer."

Winters' decision to go public, Disney's reaction and the inevitable media attention all raise the knotty question of whether registered sex offenders, apart from perpetrators of all other crimes, should live under societal restrictions upon their completion of punishment.

Disney and the film's producer argue that Salva has served his time.

Winters says he has been permanently scarred; his mother, Rebecca Winters, says he has been suicidal in recent months.

"I can't believe it. It just makes me sick," Winters said of Salva's return to filmmaking. "I'm not going to stand by. He should not be allowed to live his life as if nothing happened."

Salva confessed to having oral sex with Winters in 1987 while directing him in "Clownhouse," a low-budget horror film about three boys terrorized by circus clowns. Salva, sentenced to three years in state prison, served 15 months and completed parole in 1992.

California is among 46 states that require convicted sex offenders to register their whereabouts with local police for the rest of their lives. After parole, they face no other restrictions.

Deputy District Attorney Jack Waddell said yesterday he was "quite sure" Salva received counseling in state prison or as part of his parole.

But police warn that sexual abusers of children are rarely "cured."

A 1988 state Justice Department study found that almost half of all sex offenders are rearrested; nearly 20 percent of sex offenders commit another sex crime. Previously convicted sex offenders are more than nine times more likely to commit another sex offense than a person convicted for a non-sex offense, national statistics show.

William Dworin, in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department's unit for sexually exploited children, said pedophiles exhibit a very high tendency to repeat their crimes.

"He's in a position of authority," Dworin said of Salva, "and as long as he's in a position to be around kids he's a threat to kids."

"He paid for his crime, he paid his debt to society," countered Roger Birnbaum, whose Caravan Pictures made "Powder" for Disney. "What happened eight years ago has nothing to do with this movie."

Said Disney spokesman John Dreyer: "What's the point, other than you want to make headlines?"

Salva, 37, declined to be interviewed.

Salva won the director's job for "Powder" because Birnbaum was so impressed by his original script. The movie stars Mary Steenburgen and Jeff Goldblum as the teachers of a boy with telekinetic powers and pure white skin, which repels his peers.

The actor who plays the teen-age Powder, Sean Patrick Flanery, is 29, but Birnbaum said Monday he could not state definitively whether all others in the youthful cast were 18 or older.

Rated PG-13, the $10 million "Powder" is Salva's first mainstream Hollywood movie.