LOS ANGELES -- A judge Tuesday doubled bail to $500,000 for a convicted sex offender suspected in the disappearance of a college student from Rancho Santa Margarita.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Amy D. Hogue ordered John Steven Burgess, 35, to be electronically monitored if he posts bail.

Burgess is charged in Los Angeles with one count of failing to register as a sex offender and two counts of failing to file a change of address.

Burgess has been named as a "person of interest" -- but not charged -- in the disappearance of 19-year-old Donna Jou.

The San Diego State University honors student was last seen by her family on June 23 as she rode away on the back of Burgess' motorcycle, said Jim Amormino of the Orange County Sheriff's Department. She was later seen at Burgess' Westside home at a party, authorities have said.

In the Los Angeles case, he had been free on $250,000 bail, which was revoked by a bonding company after his arrest last month in Florida, according to Sandi Gibbons with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

Burgess, who was arrested Sept. 20 in Florida on suspicion of stealing DVDs, was returned to Los Angeles by bail agents last week and was jailed again on $250,000 bail until Tuesday's hearing.

After Jou disappeared, Burgess -- named in a $1 million arrest warrant on the registration charge and sought for questioning in Jou's disappearance -- went to Florida, where he reportedly has family.

On July 24, he was arrested on a cocaine-possession charge to which he pleaded guilty, was sentenced to time served and was extradited to Los Angeles on the failure to register charge and then freed after posting the $250,000 bail.

Burgess, who sometimes uses the nickname Sinjin, faces an Oct. 10 hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to require him to go to trial on the three felony charges in Los Angeles.

Defense attorney George Bird Jr. said recently that his client is willing to talk with investigators to give them all the information he knows about Jou if he is offered immunity from prosecution on the registration charge.

Absent an agreement, the minute Burgess says he was with Jou at his home the night she disappeared, he would be confessing to living at a home at which he had not registered, Bird said.

Burgess could face up to 12 years, or at minimum five years and four months, in prison. The charge is considered a strike, which allows a sentence to be doubled, Bird said.

In 2002, Burgess was convicted of three counts of battery and, the next year, he was found guilty of committing a lewd act on a child. He was sentenced to 146 days in jail, placed on three years' probation and required to register as a sex offender.

Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Jou's family, said she wants Burgess to talk about what happened.

"If he has any shred of decency left, and I don't know that he does, I don't know that he doesn't. That's what we're asking him to do," Allred said.

Jou's mother, Nili, told reporters outside court that she is preparing a celebration for her daughter's upcoming 20th birthday.

"I'm going to celebrate her birthday and hopefully she's here to attend that," Nili Jou said. "Hopefully she is here."