Posted on Sun, Oct. 10, 2004
Some predators freed sooner By Guy Ashley
ATASCADERO - The 539 men locked up here in the state's sexually violent predator program watch closely as their former cohorts Brian DeVries, Patrick Ghilotti and Cary Verse transition back into a society that despises them. The prospect of meeting the same public protest, threats of vigilantism and saturation news coverage causes most repeat sex offenders involuntarily committed to Atascadero State Hospital to think twice about plunging into the same program. They prefer the path of Harold Royster. Long before DeVries, Ghilotti and Verse, Royster exchanged his khakis for street clothes and walked out of Atascadero without having to wear an electronic monitoring device. Unlike the other three, Royster did not have to submit to regular lie detector tests after release or check in with a parole officer, and he had not had the same rigorous counseling and treatment inside. And when the twice-convicted rapist took up his new residence in Sacramento, nary a news crew or protester greeted him. That is because Royster is one of at least 115 repeat sex offenders at Atascadero who have won their freedom from the program by fighting their detention in court. While at Atascadero, most of the 115 refused to participate in the voluntary treatment regimen designed to keep them from reoffending, a staple of the sexually violent predator program that is supposed to be their ticket out. Most were released from the 1950s-era hospital for the criminally insane with little public notification. By contrast, only three people have been released from the 8-year-old program by following its course of therapy. For their compliance, DeVries, Verse and Ghilotti won scorn. Many reasons to resist An estimated 75 percent of "predators" committed to Atascadero refuse to take part in treatment, which doctors there say applies the latest psychological techniques to teach rapists and child molesters to resist dangerous impulses. This low participation rate raises questions about how well the public is truly being protected, and about the fiscal prudence of a program that has cost taxpayers more than $400 million since 1996. That sum in large part is driven by the cost of therapy that most of the men refuse. Hospital staffers and creators of the legislation that established the program believe it is doing its job, but men confined at the hospital in bucolic central California offer a raft of reasons not to take part. For many, like rapist Donald Anderson of Los Angeles, resistance largely comes down to the odds. "It's very clear," says Anderson, who has spent nearly eight years at Atascadero and refuses treatment. "My chances (of getting out) are better if I fight." Anderson, 51, was one of the first men confined to the sexually violent predator program when it started in 1996, a reaction by the state Legislature to a series of high-profile sex crimes, including the 1993 sexual assault, kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas in Petaluma. Like most in the program, Anderson said he was preparing for release from prison when he was told he was being referred to Atascadero under California's sexually violent predator law. He had just completed 12 years in prison for breaking into a woman's home in Los Angeles County and raping her. It was the fourth time a court had found he had committed a sexual assault. "I was making all the arrangements to be reunited with my wife and family," he said. "Then all of a sudden they say I have a mental disorder." Imperfect protection The law allows repeat sex offenders to be confined indefinitely after their prison sentences have ended if they are found to suffer from a "mental disorder that makes it likely they will attack again if released." Critics say this amounts to a kind of double jeopardy. The law has come under fierce attack from civil libertarians who say it relies on fuzzy actuarial analyses that predict the likelihood a person will commit new sex crimes. It has drawn public fire in the past year as communities have tried to refuse DeVries, Verse and Ghilotti as residents. Supporters say the law is designed to protect the public from the worst offenders. They note that only about one-half of 1 percent of the state's nearly 102,000 registered sex offenders have been ordered confined to the program. "These are the guys the nut houses are built for," said Stephen Taylor, a San Joaquin County prosecutor who handles sexually violent predator cases. "Their passion in life is to rape, to torture, to molest." Taylor remembers one defendant he took to trial in such a case who got visibly aroused recounting his crimes on the witness stand. The law "provides prosecutors with a tool in their arsenal to keep the worst offenders off the street and prevent them from preying on children," said James Rogan, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor and judge who co-authored the sexually violent predator law as a state assemblyman in 1995. "I think the law is doing what it was intended to do." But conflicts persist within program that raise broader questions about public protection and cost. The state spends more than $70 million a year to run the program, or about $130,000 per patient. That is nearly five times more per person than the state's prison system spends on its inmates, a difference officials attribute to its underused treatment component. "It's a huge waste of money," said Ted Donaldson, a Morro Bay psychologist who has testified in more than 200 sexually violent predator cases in California, always for the defense. Self incrimination Anderson says it would be wrong to legitimize a program that is illegitimate. "I don't have a mental disorder that they can treat," he said. "They misdiagnosed me as a way to keep me locked up here." He resists for another reason that motivates many to refuse treatment: Things said in therapy can be used in court to justify further incarceration. John Kreischer, 58, a former handyman and fisherman from San Diego County, said he dropped out of therapy three years ago because he felt the quest for candor went too far. He says the doctor leading his therapy group wanted him to admit to crimes he did not commit. "I know I have hurt a lot of people," said Kreischer, who has served two prison sentences for child molestation. "But I refuse to say I'm guilty of things I didn't do." One patient in therapy, Alan Rigby, likes the treatment regimen, although he expresses deep doubts about the program as a whole. He says it is hard to believe it is truly about treatment and preparing men for the outside when only DeVries has made it through the entire treatment program in eight years. (Verse and Ghilotti continue on the final "community outpatient" treatment phase.) The horrible public receptions DeVries, Verse and Ghilotti have received are another reason to reject the program, Rigby said. "It's an excellent therapy program," he said. "But I think the majority of men here will continue to refuse treatment because they really don't see a future." Many opt out John Rodriguez, a deputy director for the state Department of Mental Health, which runs the program, said he is troubled by the large number who do not take treatment, and instead spend their days watching TV, wandering about the exercise yard and creating friction with staffers and other patients, particularly those who do take part in treatment. "It's a striking number," he said. "And what that means, to me, is that we're not making progress with a large majority of these men toward dealing with their issues and preparing them to live without reoffending." Seven men at Atascadero have now moved into the treatment program's fourth phase, which focuses on preparing them for life outside. State officials say they expect four to leave Atascadero and enter the outpatient phase of therapy in the coming year. With the program scheduled to move to a new, 1,500-bed hospital in Coalinga sometime in the next two years, state officials are planning ways to cut costs by bolstering security and reducing psychological staff for those who refuse treatment, Rodriguez said. Doctors who run the treatment program say the twice-weekly group therapy sessions reflect the "gold standard" of cognitive-behavioral intervention for sex offenders, employing the latest advances in treatment for a group of deeply troubled and dangerous men. "It's the state of the art," said Dr. Deirdre D'Orazio, a clinical psychologist who runs therapy sessions with the "predators" at Atascadero. "A lot of very fine people are staking their reputations behind this." But many critics within the field of psychology attack the approach as unproven, a drain of public funds and a sham that uses mental health as cover for a politically driven program designed to further punish society's most despised criminals. "They're using a psychiatric facility to pursue a legal end," said Mark Graff, a San Fernando Valley psychiatrist who led efforts by the California Psychiatric Association to oppose the sexually violent predator law. "There are a lot of questions about whether these men can be treated, and to the state I don't really think it matters. This law is about punishment, punishment, punishment." Taylor, the San Joaquin County prosecutor, says additional protections provided by the law are needed for those few offenders who show little sign of reforming their ways. "When you have a guy who has been caught sexually offending as a teenager, in his 20s and again at 35, you're dealing with one of the select few mentally deranged people who needs to be locked away," he said. "Because if you don't, he's going to keep reoffending again and again until he kills somebody ... or kills himself by cutting himself on the window he's breaking into." Character flaws In 2001, Royster became one of the state's first repeat offenders to convince a jury that he did not belong in the program. He had arrived at Atascadero four years earlier, after serving 10 years in prison for the forcible rape of a 21-year-old woman. He served a previous prison stint for raping two teenage girls in Plumas County in 1979. In winning his release, his attorneys mounted a novel strategy. Donaldson, who testified for the defense, said they did not minimize the damage Royster had done. They simply said his crimes reflected flaws of character, not a mental defect. "He's like most of the men in that program," he said. "They're criminals, many of whom chose to do horrific acts. Very few of them are so psychologically impaired that they can't stop themselves from sex offending." Sitting in a meeting room at Atascadero, Anderson said he committed his crimes at a time when his life was out of control. "I was living the fast life, running the streets, staying up all night with no permanent home," he said. He says he is a different man at 51 than he was at 30, when he last went away. "I've had a lot of time for introspection," he said. "And the one thing I know is I don't belong here ... I'm a sane man in an insane asylum." Reach Guy Ashley at 510-763-8045 or gashley@cctimes.com .
REGION & STATE
August 20, 2004 SACRAMENTO — In the most significant expansion of California's version of Megan's Law since it was enacted in 1996, the state Senate voted Thursday to post photographs and other information about released sex offenders on the Internet. But Democrats blocked Republican efforts to expand the categories of crimes that would qualify sex offenders to be publicly listed and to identify the home addresses of all offenders. Democrats agreed to reveal addresses only for repeat offenders and for predators who committed the most serious crimes, such as kidnapping to commit rape and rape of a child under 14 by someone at least 10 years older. For many other felony offenders — such as first-time convicts who raped unconscious, disabled or drunk victims — only their ZIP Code would be posted. "California has been sorely behind the curve for a long, long time," said Sen. Jim Battin (R-La Quinta), who sponsored seven previous versions of the bill. In 1947, California became the first state to require sex offenders released from prison to register with law enforcement officials. But the information was not released to the public until 1996, after a New Jersey girl named Megan Kanka was raped and killed by a sex offender released into her neighborhood. Access to the information has been disseminated by law enforcement officials, and callers can inquire about a specific individual through a 900 number. Democrats who control the Legislature had refused to place the information on the Internet until this year. GOP officials charged that they were doing so now only to help one of their most vulnerable incumbents: Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), who is in a tight reelection race. She sponsored the bill, AB 488, which the Senate approved 35 to 1. Parra disputed that her reelection effort was the reason for the bill's passage. "We may have been a little late to put it on the Internet, but it was only in March that the [U.S.] Supreme Court validated the ability for states to put the Megan's Law database on the Internet," she said. While some counties have begun constructing their own online registries, the new bill would require the state Department of Justice to create one unified Internet listing of sex offenders throughout California. The Assembly is expected to send the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not stated his position on it. The Legislature allocated $650,000 to pay for the program, which is supposed to begin next July. Also on Thursday, legislators voted to: • Require cities and counties to consult Indian tribes before they allowed building on historic sites that were once used for sacred rituals. "We finally have on a state level recognition of tribal culture, recognition of our sacred sites. That would be akin to actually the state finally recognizing the Catholic Church," said Anthony Miranda, a member of the Pechanga tribe. "That's the struggle that we've been in, to be finally recognized that yes, we do have a culture." The bill, approved 30 to 4 by the Senate, was a weaker version of several previous measures that could not overcome opposition from utilities, oil companies and the business lobby. Having already won Assembly approval, it goes to Schwarzenegger. • Require insurance companies to treat registered domestic partners the same as they treat married spouses when selling them car, health, homeowners and other coverage. The Senate passed AB 2208 by a vote of 23 to 12; the amended bill goes back to the Assembly. • Make it easier for local agencies to distribute syringes to drug addicts in order to avoid their relying on used needles and getting infected with HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne diseases. AB 2871 repeals a current law that requires cities and counties to first declare a local health emergency. The Senate passed the bill 21 to 14; it still needs Assembly approval of amendments. • Require the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to keep air pollution at or below 2004 levels. AB 2042 is a response to concerns that diesel-burning ships, trucks and trains at the nation's largest port complex are exposing residents to cancer-causing emissions. Industry groups say the measure could eliminate jobs and weaken the area economy. The Senate passed it 21 to 15; it now returns to the Assembly.
Predator-release bill passed by Assembly
By Jim Sanders -- Bee Capitol Bureau
Outrage by Vacaville and other communities forced to accommodate sexually
violent predators freed from prison has prompted lawmakers to adopt new
ground rules for such releases.AB 493 was approved Monday by the Assembly,
65-2. It now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is
The legislation was passed as an urgency measure, meaning it would become law as soon as Schwarzenegger approves it. AB 493 potentially could block sexually violent predator Cary Verse, currently living in San Jose, from moving to Merced. A court ruling in Verse's case is scheduled for Friday.Under AB
493, sexually violent predators would be released into the county where
they last lived.Judges could make exceptions only if they found an "extraordinary
circumstance," such as hardship on a victim.The bill would prevent community
outrage from forcing the bouncing of sexually violent predators from one
community to another.Controversy
The Bee's Jim Sanders can be reached at (916) 326-5538 or jsanders@sacbee.com .
http://www.thereporter.com/Stories/0,1413,295~30195~2320880,00.html The Reporter
Bill on placement of sex predators passes
Saturday, August 07, 2004 - The California Senate on Friday approved Assembly Bill 493, by Assemblyman Simon Salinas, D-Salinas, which requires sexually violent predators to be released in the county where they lived before they were incarcerated. The measure was presented on the senate floor by Sen. Mike Machado, D-Solano, whose Senate Bill 446 requires the state to reimburse local agencies' costs for increased law enforcement caused by the release of inmates deemed sexually violent predators. Machado has been pushing for changes in the law regarding the release of such inmates in the wake of the release of convicted serial rapist Patrick Ghilotti into Vacaville. "While no community ever welcomes sexually violent predators, AB 493 establishes a fair and orderly standard that helps prevent controversy and chaos when SVPs are released," Machado said. "This bill recognizes the hardships felt by the people of the city of Vacaville by eliminating unexpected placements of SVPs in their neighborhood." The Sexually Violent Predator law provides civil commitment for psychiatric treatment of criminals convicted of sexually violent offenses after their prison sentences are complete. These inmates have committed crimes against two or more victims and are diagnosed with mental disorders that make them a danger to others, Machado said. The bill passed Friday provides that when a court conditionally releases such an inmate, the release shall be in the county where the offender lived before incarceration, unless extraordinary circumstances exist. The Senate approved the bill by a vote of 30 to 0. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the measure next week.
Treatment for rapists, molesters under fire
Atascadero, San Luis Obispo Coun -- First of Two Parts. California, in a program whose effectiveness is being questioned, spends more than $75 million a year to lock up hundreds of child molesters and rapists in a maximum-security hospital here after their prison terms have ended. The cost -- about $400 a day per person -- pays for housing, health care, administrative and court-related costs of 535 ex-convicts who are incarcerated at Atascadero State Hospital in the Sexually Violent Predator Program. The price tag is about five times the daily cost of keeping an inmate in state prison. Controversy has surrounded the program since it became law in 1996 because it extends the incarceration time for criminals after their prison terms have ended and because of debate over whether child molesters and rapists can learn to manage, if not be cured of, their predatory urges. In Northern California, three high-profile inmates who chose to spend years in the hospital's treatment sessions -- serial rapist Patrick Ghilotti, child molester Brian DeVries and rapist Cary Verse -- were released within the past year amid public outcry and local law enforcement opposition. And in a federal court in Los Angeles, a class-action lawsuit is attacking California's implementation of the predator law on the grounds, among other things, that it illegally extends the offenders' incarceration. A four-month Chronicle examination of the predator program found that: -- Within the Atascadero population, Ghilotti, DeVries and Verse were among the very few in the program who elected to receive treatment. Fully 80 percent of the sex offenders sent to Atascadero never participated in treatment sessions, which cannot be forced. Many inmates say they distrust the treatment process, fearing that what they say will be used against them in future legal proceedings. -- Because of court backlogs and extensive litigation surrounding individual cases, about 70 men have been hospitalized at Atascadero for three years or longer without being given a trial before a judge or jury to test whether their extended incarceration was valid. Three men have been held there for eight years without trial. -- Since 1996, more than 2,200 ex-convicts identified as candidates for the program have been dropped off the list by state-hired psychologists, district attorneys, judges or juries. Released offenders often receive no court-ordered tracking such as electronic monitoring, if their parole expired during their extended incarceration at Atascadero. -- A review of 121 of the men who were either evaluated for the program and rejected, or accepted into the program and later released, found that about 11 percent committed new sex crimes. Several were convicted of violent sexual assaults, including rape at knifepoint. Another 16 percent committed other felonies, ranging from assault with a deadly weapon to failure to register as sex offenders. About 6 percent were re-imprisoned for violating parole. Records indicated that two-thirds of the 121 released men did not re- offend. -- Thirty-four men in the cases reviewed were committed to the program after civil trials but won release after their initial two-year commitments because psychologists, prosecutors, judges or juries found they were not sufficiently dangerous or an appellate court overturned their commitment. Most did not participate in the treatment program, which takes at least three years, and none finished it. Under Megan's Law, they must register as sex offenders, but not all complied. Under the Sexually Violent Predator Law, the state Department of Mental Health identifies inmates who might be kept as predators after their prison terms end. To extend inmates' incarceration, two psychiatrists or psychologists must determine they are a danger, a district attorney must decide to begin legal proceedings, a judge must find there is probable cause to hold them, and then a judge or jury must decide after a civil trial they are so dangerous they should be kept in a state hospital for two years. At the end of that time, the law allows committed predators to be kept for another two years by going through the same legal process, but those recommitment trials are often delayed. To be classified as a sexually violent predator, a person must have "been convicted of a sexually violent offense against two or more victims and (have) a diagnosed mental disorder that makes the person a danger to the health and safety of others in that it is likely that he or she will engage in sexually violent criminal behavior." Some critics express dissatisfaction with the implementation of predator law, which was enacted following the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas of Petaluma in 1993. Prosecutors say some violent sex offenders have been released only to re- offend, while some mental health experts insist more focus should be placed on treatment. Stephen W. Mayberg, head of the state Department of Mental Health, defends the program, saying the department "has done everything in its power to assure the community of public safety. Predicting human behavior is difficult at best. Each year we learn more about what works and what doesn't. For us the challenge is to balance public safety, treatment and civil rights." The population of convicted sex offenders in California is huge: More than 17,000 are in state prisons, and more than 67,000 have served their time and live in communities outside prison walls. But California is one of few states whose prisons offer no significant sex offender treatment programs. California's handling of its sexually violent predators is facing a challenge by a major Los Angeles law firm, Latham & Watkins, which argues in its lawsuit that sex offenders' constitutional rights are being violated in part by subjecting them to conditions that are often worse than state prison. Franklin Zimring, a criminal law professor at the UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall, said the issues involved in the incarceration of sexually violent offenders are central to how the society defines itself. "The true measure of the quality of the justice system is how those who are most detested are treated," said Zimring, adding that the system's failure to provide offenders with a prompt trial "seems to me to be a scandal. But it's the kind of scandal that has very few political costs. No one is going to be successful running for office in this state about the rights of sex offenders." Experts also question whether California relies too heavily on the expensive, extended hospital incarceration of ex-inmates it identifies as sexually violent predators, while neglecting thousands of other rapists and child molesters who are not identified as predators but could be treated while in prison. California focuses on only "a tiny point of the pyramid of sex offenders at an enormous cost," said Eric Janus, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., and a national expert on sexual predator laws. "We delude ourselves if we think we are locking up all the recidivists. ... (We're) going to miss most of the people who are going to commit more sex crimes." Barbara Schwartz, who has overseen sex offender treatment programs in several states, said: "It's really a very reckless public policy. You're still committing only a very small percentage of sex offenders, and the ability to identify those who should be committed is questionable." Schwartz, former clinical director of the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons, recommends that treatment be made available to every sex offender in prison, and those released from prison be placed on lifetime parole with electronic monitoring, outpatient therapy and polygraph testing. Since its program began, California has spent more than $400 million in state and local funds to confine predators after prison. Juries have classified 471 men and one woman (a child molester housed separately at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County) as sexually violent predators. In addition to the 535 men housed at Atascadero as predators or candidates for the program, scores of other candidates are locked up at county jails statewide under the predator law, raising the program's cost. The average waiting time for an inmate's trial under the program is three years. Few crimes upset the public more than those involving sexually violent attacks, and public sentiment typically favors lengthy prison terms for such violators -- driven by fear the criminals will re-offend upon release. Studies show that recidivism rates for sex offenders are lower than those for the general prison population, but defenders of California's predator law insist that the program was created to target those most likely to re-offend. In 1995, the predator law sailed through the state Legislature. Similar laws have been passed in 15 other states in the past decade, inspiring a legal and philosophical debate over how to protect public safety while preserving individual rights. California's new law replaced a system that released sexually violent predators once they had completed their prison terms. "We felt that this (predator law) was the best way to protect society," said James E. Rogan, a Republican ex-prosecutor who co-wrote the law as an Assembly member from Los Angeles County. Karen Guidotti, a San Mateo County deputy district attorney who heads her office's sex-crimes unit, said, "Everybody can agree that (predators') past behavior has shown that they're going to re-offend. I do think it's an expensive program, but it's worth it because the trauma to the victims and their families is horrific." Attorneys for sex offenders say the predator law was an act of political vengeance against those imprisoned before California's "get-tough" sentencing laws of the mid-1990s. "The intent is to lock these guys up. It's pure and simple," said Sacramento attorney Michael Aye, who has represented sex offenders in the predator program. Aye insists that many offenders committed their sex crimes decades ago and pose little risk of re-offending. Other defense attorneys say many child molesters committed acts such as touching a child rather than violently attacking them. Prosecutors say the predators are special offenders. "They are world-class psychopaths in their ability to manipulate, seduce and con," said prosecutor Stephen E. Taylor of San Joaquin County. "Most guys at 40 are just interested in getting some sleep. These guys are out at 2 a.m. climbing into somebody's window, raping them, and asking them to fix their breakfast." He cites the case of a predator who wrote love letters to his victims and collected strands of their hair. In one instance, Taylor said, this predator seemed "to think he's going to put a wedding dress on this girl -- and she's 5. ... We're not just putting someone in the nuthouse because they raped somebody or touched a kid. Our people have something extra -- that inability to control their behavior." The predator population at Atascadero includes truck drivers, military vets, laborers, career criminals, teachers, baby sitters and a missionary. More than half are pedophiles, a third are rapists, and the rest have engaged in both activities. Some are in their 60s, 70s and 80s in declining health. Some use canes, wheelchairs or walkers. One patient in a wheelchair recently fell over and broke a rib. Health care for these seniors, along with county court costs, adds to the program's expense, said Deputy Mental Health Director John Rodriguez. "A lot of these guys have been (incarcerated) for 10 to 20 years, and they have changed," Aye said. "The rapists were driven by social and biological factors that are no longer in existence." Aye argues that, at much less cost, the state should provide community supervision and outpatient treatment programs for them. Other states have taken different approaches. Texas conditionally releases its sexually violent offenders without hospitalization, monitors their location with Global Positioning System devices, subjects them to lie-detector and other tests to assess their control of sexual urges, and requires attendance at outpatient treatment sessions that include group and individual therapy. Several other states, including Arizona, Illinois and Minnesota, hospitalize sexually violent criminals when necessary but emphasize community treatment programs. While defense lawyers say hospital confinement after prison amounts to re- punishment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that a similar law in Kansas was constitutional, as long as it was applied in a nonpunitive fashion. In 1999, the California Supreme Court upheld the state's predator law, concluding that patients are not held for past crimes but instead for their mental disorders and their propensity to commit future violent crimes. In California, decisions to extend incarceration turn on the issue of dangerousness: whether there is a "serious and well-founded risk" the inmate will re-offend in a sexually violent manner. "There have been considerable advances in the prediction of sex offense recidivism in the last 10 years," said R. Karl Hanson, a Canadian government researcher and a leading authority on sexual predators, but the process remains speculative. Certain rapists older than 60 are less likely to rape again. Child molesters tend to continue to offend later in their lives. "There is no certainty in this business," Hanson said. "Some people who have had terrible histories of offending decide to stop. ... A lot of sex crime, like other crime, is impulsive." Ted Donaldson, a psychologist in Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County) who often testifies for the defense in sexual predator cases, said the program "has more politics and more bad psychology than any other program we've ever had. Most of the people being committed don't have a sexual mental disorder" as required under the law. "Most of them do have ugly criminal histories. Juries don't like them." Marita Mayer, a Contra Costa County deputy public defender, compares the predator law to the 2002 film "Minority Report," in which people were imprisoned for future crimes envisioned by women with a gift for prophecy. "I don't think anybody can predict the future. It's all kind of voodoo to me," Mayer said. "It's a pre-emptive strike against the sex offenders: to lock up these people before they do it again. We have lowered the standard so much that we are locking up people who probably won't recommit because a few of them might." Those who have completed Atascadero's treatment program and won their conditional release are among the most reviled social outcasts in California. DeVries, a child molester freed last August, lives in a trailer at Soledad State Prison. Verse, a rapist discharged in February, lives in San Jose while the community of Merced fights his transfer there. Vacaville residents are angry that Ghilotti, a San Rafael rapist with a string of rapes in Marin County in the 1970s and '80s, now lives among them. Mike Hughes, treatment program manager at Atascadero, said he wishes the public could understand that sex offenders like Ghilotti have made admirable efforts to overcome their sexual urges. "Only about 20 percent of our patients have chosen to be in the treatment program," Hughes said. "It's hard work, it's long work, it's painful work. And there is no welcoming back into the community. So many patients don't see the program as the way to get out. They view the court system as the way to get out and, statistically, that's proven to be the case. The guys in treatment are quite courageous." The treatment program includes group therapy, the viewing of pornography, drugs that decrease sexual urges and repeated masturbation aimed at reducing desire. Defense lawyers often advise their clients to avoid treatment -- where they would have to acknowledge having a problem -- and instead to contest their cases, where they stand a chance of convincing a judge or jury to set them free. Predators who have completed the treatment program are released under strict supervision. For example, Verse is electronically monitored via global positioning system technology. He must submit to blood and urine testing as well as polygraph tests, check in with his case manager once or twice a week and see a psychologist and a psychiatrist, stay away from schools and take Lupron, a drug that lowers his testosterone level and thus his sexual urges. Despite all these safeguards, state officials are clearly worried about the potential fallout if a released offender commits another crime. Last year, a judge decided to free DeVries even though former Gov. Gray Davis and Mayberg, the head of Department of Mental Health, opposed his release. In a February 2003 letter to the court, Mayberg wrote: "I believe that he may be a danger to the health and safety of others while in outpatient treatment. ... Even with the most stringent measures of care and supervision while on outpatient status, it cannot be guaranteed that he will not re-offend. " Those who handle predator cases are also concerned about the cost to state and local government. "It's endless litigation,'' said Taylor, the San Joaquin County prosecutor who has tried sexual predator cases since 1998. "It's fantastically expensive. We cannot survive as a state if we continue to pay more than $100, 000 for a prison bed. And they shouldn't get recommitment trials every two years. I think we've prevented new Polly Klaas cases, but now we need to make adjustments and get the budget back in whack." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sought to reduce the program's cost, proposing "indefinite commitments" for predators with no legal right to a trial every two years. But the fate of that proposal in the Legislature is uncertain. The state is building a maximum-security hospital at Coalinga (Fresno County) for an estimated $400 million. Mental health officials plan to transfer male predators to the 1,500-bed hospital as early as fall 2005 and expect the predator population to reach 1,000 by the year 2012. Those who refuse to participate in treatment sessions would be housed in separate units with less psychiatric staffing. Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the National Institute for the Study, Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Trauma at Johns Hopkins University, is one of many experts who believe that prison presents an opportunity for California to offer treatment programs that hold some hope of reducing the number of new sex crimes and the irreparable damage they inflict on victims. "There are less costly ways of helping these guys become safer citizens,"
he said. "There is too little emphasis in the prisons on lowering the recidivism
rate of sex offenders. Wardens are mainly focused on security. Basically,
we've lost all that prison time by not having treatment time."
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TODAY: The first of a two-part series outlines the controversy swirling around the state's Sexually Violent Predator Law and the debate about the process through which the state decides whether a sex offender should be confined for two more years after his or her prison term ends. The story also reveals largely unknown aspects of the program -- including the fact it keeps many offenders behind bars for several years without a trial by a judge or jury. TOMORROW: The story details the cases of several high-risk sex offenders
who were rejected for California's sexually violent predator program but
went on to commit new, violent sex crimes. It also tells how most sex offenders
are less likely to reoffend than the general prison population -- but that
statistic does little to dispel angry public opposition when sexual predators
are released into their communities.
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PRISONERS AND PAROLEES
Referred by California Department of Corrections and the Board of Prison Terms as candidates for the sexually violent predator program since 1996. 2,394 do not qualify Department of Mental Health finds they don't fit the criteria under
the law.
REVIEW AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION
1,209* Found by psychologists to be dangerous and likely to reoffend. Almost all these cases are referred to district attorneys. 1,788 not likely to reoffend Rejected by state psychologists who say they don't meet the legal definition of predator. 178 district attorney declines Sex offenders the district attorney declines to file against as predators.
LEGAL REVIEW AND COURT DECISION
775 Judge finds there is probable cause to hold the sex offenders for civil trials to decide if they shouldreceive a two-year commitment. 472 Committed for two-year terms as sexually violent predators via jury or judge trial. 148 judge declines Sex offenders whom a judge finds there is not probable cause to hold for trial. 113 rejected at trial Judge or jury finds they are no longer sufficiently dangerous to be
committed to the program.
SEXUALLY VIOLENT PREDATOR PROGRAM
- Brian DeVries, Aug. 2003 - Cary Verse, Feb. 2004 - Patrick Ghilotti, May 2004 Supervised release from state hospital treatment program 34 Released after two-year commitment as sexually violent predators - most without treatment 12 because one or more mental health experts found they were no longer likely to reoffend. 11 because the district attorney did not file a petition to keep them in the program. 7 because a jury did not find they should be recommitted. 4 because of a court ruling rejecting their confinement. Sources: Department of Mental Health; prosecutors and defense attorneys *These figures contain a small number of cases that were suspended due to legal and administrative reasons. Chronicle research librarian Kathleen Rhodes contributed to this report.E-mail
Jim Doyle at jdoyle@sfchronicle.com.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/11/MNGB57ILU41.DTL
Part 2 State experts get big fees to evaluate mental health
Mental health experts on a state panel earn big fees for evaluating inmates and parolees for possible lockup at Atascadero State Hospital as sexually violent predators. The California Department of Mental Health spends about $5.9 million a year on these clinical evaluations as well as for expert testimony of its evaluators in court. Some psychologists and psychiatrists contracted by the state earn $300,000 a year or more from this work. "The legal standards for commitment are very vague," said Eric Janus, a professor at the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., and a national expert on sexually violent predator laws. "The psychologists are given extraordinary power. ... There are some psychologists who have made a lot of money nationwide on this." Generally, two experts evaluate an inmate. They focus on whether the sex offender has a diagnosed mental disorder that makes him likely to commit sexually violent crimes if released. If the two evaluators recommend hospitalization, one or both will testify at the sex offender's civil trial. If the evaluators disagree, a new panel of two evaluators is chosen. If a patient is committed to the hospital, he has the right to a new trial in two years to determine if he should still be held. So experts evaluate the patient again. The current state panel has 51 psychologists and one psychiatrist. Seven are state employees. The rest receive fees for evaluations and about $100 an hour for testimony and travel and waiting time. State records indicate that the top five earners in fiscal year 2003 were psychologists: -- Charles Jackson of Riverside County, $341,770. -- Dawn Starr of San Luis Obispo County, $288,450. -- Doug Korpi of San Francisco, $245,100. -- Jack Vognsen of San Francisco, $209, 970. -- Robert Owen of San Luis Obispo County, $193,150. "Professional services are not inexpensive," Owen said. "... There's a lot at stake for these individuals (being evaluated), and I always believe that they deserve a comprehensive look." Owen said he does not recall any cases where an inmate he evaluated for the predator program went on to commit a new sex crime. Jackson said that as far as he knows, two inmates he evaluated went on to commit sex crimes. Vognsen said that two offenders he evaluated were later charged with new attempted rapes, and that others committed parole violations. Starr declined to comment, and Korpi did not return repeated phone calls. Psychologist Kathleen Longwell of Oakland, who has evaluated more than 300 sexual predators, said there is established research indicating "how to distinguish a sex offender who is likely to re-offend and those who are not." Basically, a man is given an initial score based on his past sex crimes, general crime history, age and other key factors. Longwell also uses her clinical judgment, weighing additional factors such as substance abuse. Longwell said: "There's no way of guaranteeing that none of these guys will sexually re-offend without locking them all up. Everyone is at some risk." Prosecutors say the evaluators provide expert opinions based on objective, statistical data. Defense lawyers and some forensic psychologists argue there is no scientifically accepted way of predicting someone's likelihood to commit violent sex crimes. Chronicle research librarian Kathleen Rhodes contributed to this report.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/07/12/MNG027K2S41.DTL
www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/8990627.htm Posted on Wed, Jun. 23, 2004
Tougher bill clears hurdle for data on sex offenders By Kate Folmar
SACRAMENTO - A watershed bill that would post on the Internet the names, photos and crimes of California's 85,000 registered sex offenders -- and also add home addresses for thousands who have committed the most serious crimes, particularly against children -- eked out enough votes Tuesday to emerge from a key committee. The update of Megan's Law, written by Assemblywoman Nicole Parra, D-Bakersfield, was expected to face its toughest test in the Senate Public Safety Committee, which is dominated by left-leaning, civil libertarian Democrats. Currently, most people who seek information about sex criminals living nearby can get it only by going to a police station or placing a toll call. A recent Mercury News investigation found California's Megan's Law information database was little-used and riddled with errors. The bill still must make several stops before it reaches the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a stance on it. But the committee's endorsement significantly boosts its chances of becoming law. At a hearing Tuesday, Parra rejected suggestions by the American Civil Liberties Union and state Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, to erase a sex offender's name from the Internet after five or 10 years without a repeat offense. Parra said she was concerned that many sexual criminals are repeat offenders, and crimes such as child molestation and rape often go unreported. ``In many rural communities, such as those that I represent, information on sex offenders is not available to the public,'' said Parra, her voice at times quavering with emotion. ``My constituents want to be able to view the information about their area -- and their homes -- after work or after their children have gone to bed.'' Other efforts to post sex-offender information on the Internet have stalled in the Legislature in recent years. Representatives from the Attorney General's Office and from the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office spoke in favor of the bill, because it would make critical information easier to obtain, particularly for those who might otherwise be nervous about visiting a police station. But Francisco Lobaco, the ACLU's legislative director, said he was concerned about the potential for vigilantism against sex offenders and that the Internet-posting would linger forever even for those who do not offend again. ``The bill still does not fix that fundamental issue,'' Lobaco said. There was almost no debate, other than Romero's suggestion. Giving the measure the minimum four votes it needed to advance were Republicans Bruce McPherson of Santa Cruz and Bob Margett of Diamond Bar, and Democrats John Burton of San Francisco and John Vasoncellos of San Jose. The remaining committee members either were not present or did not vote. McPherson, who chairs the Senate Public Safety Committee, said he was pleased that the bill finally has a real shot at becoming law. He said it strikes the right balance between protecting the public without excessively invading the privacy of sex offenders. Likewise, Margett said he was pleased that a bill this strong is making progress in the Democratic-dominated Legislature. ``It's quite a bit for the mentality of this particular Legislature'' to endorse the bill, Margett said. ``I'm thankful that we got what we got. Our committee is a tough committee.'' The committee, depending on one's point of view, can either be the graveyard of good public-safety bills or the ``car wash'' that cleans up sloppy or overly punitive anti-crime measures. The proposal, AB 488, would post existing information on sex offenders online by July 1, 2005. And it would add home addresses for people who committed serious crimes, mainly against children -- such as oral copulation of a child under 14 by someone a decade older. People who already must register under Megan's Law and who then commit other specific crimes -- such as the rape of an unconscious, disabled or intoxicated victim -- would also see their addresses posted. Those who commit less-serious crimes -- such as misdemeanor child molestation -- could apply to be excluded from the Internet. The measure, which passed the Assembly with just two ``no'' votes in January, no longer calls for allowing courts to post work and vehicle information for some sex offenders -- last-minute additions to the original bill that concerned civil libertarians. But the changes may also expand the group of hard-core sex offenders whose home addresses would be posted online. Parra said she hopes that the committee vote -- and the support of Burton,
the legislature's most powerful Democrat -- bodes well for what she calls
a ``landmark piece of legislation that makes California's Megan's Law among
the toughest laws in the country.''
Contact Kate Folmar at kfolmar@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4602.
High-profile sex predator arrested for failing to register
(06-18) 17:19 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Cary Verse, the second sexually violent predator in California to be released after completing state-mandated treatment, has been arrested for failing to update his registration as a sex offender -- a potential "third strike" that could put him back in prison for life. San Jose police said they arrested Verse at 10 p.m. Thursday at the Mission Motel in San Jose, where he landed most recently after community pressure forced him to leave a motel in Mill Valley and two residences in Oakland. Sgt. Ron Helder, who runs the department's sex offender registration unit, said Verse was due to re-register Monday. "We knocked on the door, he steps outside and when we told him why we were there, he had a look of surprise on his face," Helder said. "He said he forgot." Verse arrived in San Jose on March 16 and was required to register no later than June 14 with the police department. He was booked into Santa Clara County Jail on one felony count of failing to update his registration as a sex offender, police said. He will likely be arraigned Monday, Helder said. If convicted of failing to register, Verse could be sent to prison for life under California's three strikes law. Helder said police considered reminding Verse that his registration was due, but, after consulting with the police chief and the district attorney's office, decided against it. "He's under close supervision and he signed his forms knowing he had to register every 90 days," Helder said. "Do we give special privileges to anyone else? No." Verse's treatment supervisor, Jim Denman, declined to comment early Friday. His boss at Liberty Healthcare, Ken Carabello, also declined to comment. John Rodriguez, deputy director of the California Department of Mental Health, said Verse made a mistake. "I presume that he didn't do it on purpose," Rodriguez said. "It shouldn't happen again." Verse wears a global positioning system device that sets off an alarm when he gets out of range of a box he carries with him. Helder said Verse's arrest provided an unplanned opportunity to test the device's reliability and that it failed because it took an hour and a half after they arrested him for police to hear from mental health officials that Verse was separated from the box. "Somebody should've known there was an alert," Helder said. But Rodriguez said mental health officials were notified "immediately" and the device worked "very well." Verse had been trying to keep a low profile upon his release from Atascadero State Hospital, where he spent years in treatment after serving a lengthy prison sentence for violent sex crimes. He must keep track of his daily activities, visitors and phone calls, and he attends weekly therapy sessions. Helder, who said Verse has been "doing a real good job" despite his past, blamed the Department of Mental Health for the failure to register. "(Denman) said it just kind of slipped his mind," Helder said. "You should have it circled three times on your calendar." But public defender Ron Boyer, who's been involved with Verse's case since 1999, said he's less sure there was a violation at all. Boyer said the law requires sex predators to verify their addresses every 90 days. San Jose police knew where Verse lived and they checked in on him weekly, so Verse's obligation was met, according to Boyer. "You could hardly have a more hyper-technical violation, if it's a violation at all," Boyer said. Because Verse now lives in Santa Clara County, he'll be represented by Brian Matthews, the public defender who handled the case of Brian DeVries, California's first sexually violent predator to graduate from treatment. DeVries left Atascadero last August and moved into a trailer on the grounds of a state prison in Soledad. Matthews refused to comment on Verse's case Friday. The law requires sexually violent predators to be released into the
community in which they committed their crimes. The Department of Mental
Health, which oversees the treatment program, said Verse was rejected by
dozens of landlords in Contra Costa County before finding a place to stay
in San Jose.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/06/18/state1216EDT1102.DTL
http://fox40.trb.com/news/ktxl-050804molesters,0,4545068,print.story?coll=ktxl-news-3 Can Sex Offenders Be Cured?
May 8, 2004 SACRAMENTO -- He's set to become the third person released under the state's sexually violent predator law. But some Vacaville residents remain dead set against Patrick Ghilotti calling their neighborhood home. Some are asking can sex offenders be cured? When asked what he did to young boys, child molester, Delmar Burrows, says, "Or girls. It was either way. First of all I would get to know 'em." That was easy for Delmar Burrows. He's soft spoken, mild mannered, even childlike himself. But then, somewhere along the line, that friendliness changed shape Burrows says, "Just happened. I talked to 'em about it. They said they didn't know. They didn't care. Boom. I had my choice of having sex with them." Asked if that's what he did, Burrows answers "basically, molested 'em, yeah." He says that continued for more than 10 years. Facing life in prison in 1997, Burrows asked a Placer County judge to order him castrated, a first in Northern California. For the past seven years, he's had no urge to fondle or have sex with young children. "Honestly. Not one urge. Not one single urge. It's a big burden lifted." said Burrows. Burrows says it's because of the castration. Despite documented claims a sex offender's imbalance is a mental one, revolving around power, Burrows holds fast. "I know deep in my heart, for me, I'm safe." Burrows said. Another serial sex offender, who FOX40 profiled last year, isn't so sure. Like Burrows, Jake Goldenflame was molested as a child and passed the experience on to other children, even his own. Jake Goldenflame says, "We find ourselves having this kind of sexuality. It comes as a surprise to us.. that all of a sudden we're doing this." Goldenflame says his time in prison has kept him from abusing again, but the demons remain. He says, "Sex offending is not curable, that is no longer debatable. It's something that no one can take a pill for, get an operation for." Or is it? The one thing these two men share, besides victimizing too
many children to easily count, is that only time will tell whether their
respective communities really are safe.
http://www.marinij.com/Stories/0,1413,234~24407~2131123,00.html Marin Independent Journal
Judge clears release of Marin
rapist
Thursday, May 06, 2004 - Marin serial rapist Pat-rick Ghilotti, held in a state mental hospital since 1997 after his prison term concluded, can be released to his wife's Vacaville home under a plan that was signed yesterday by a Marin Superior Court judge. "The court expects and requires that he will do nothing to exacerbate any negative impact of his presence upon that community," Judge Stephen Graham wrote in his order. Specific information about the staffing and security measures for his release program were provided to the judge under court seal by officials with the state and with Liberty Healthcare, the contract firm overseeing the release of the man dubbed the Lincoln Avenue Rapist. Marin Chief Assistant District Attorney Ed Ber-berian said it appears Ghilotti could be released immediately from Atascadero State Hospital, where he has been held under terms of the state's sexually violent predator law. It remained unclear yesterday whether Ghilotti still remained at the facility, located in San Luis Obispo County. "The judge has made his decision," Berberian said. "It is what he believes is required for him to do under the law. I agree that it what the law calls on for him to do, but we don't agree with it. Based on his acts and his record, he doesn't deserve to be released back into the community. He doesn't deserve that trust." The order calls for Ghilotti's initial release to be for one year. His program compliance is to be reviewed in front of the judge on June 30. The "outpatient treatment" document that Ghilotti must approve before his release calls on him to provide his initials in 70 places. It includes provisions on the monitoring devices he must wear constantly to when and where he can go to what he can watch on television. He must agree to stay away from a number of Marin gatherings - specifically the Marin County Fair, the San Rafael Italian Street Painting Festival, San Anselmo Fair, Fairfax Street Festival, Mountain Play, Sausalito Art Festival and the Novato Arts and Wine Festival unless he receives advance permission. It was not immediately clear why these events had been singled out. His first known victim, who was raped in her former home on San Rafael's Lincoln Avenue in 1977, said she was upset to hear the release of her attacker had been approved. "I don't think he should get out, definitely not, because I think he is going to reoffend," she said. "It's better that he's there rather than here, but I feel sorry for the people of Vacaville because they're going to have to be more careful. They're going to have to watch out. He should not get out, period." Police and government officials in Vacaville, who had strongly opposed Ghilotti's release to their Solano County city, were taken aback by the news of the release order. City Manager David Van Kirk said he was not aware of the judge's decision until he was contacted by a reporter. Van Kirk said the city has not heard back from the governor's office on its request that Ghilotti be placed on the grounds of a state mental hospital, in Vacaville or elsewhere, as was done with the first sexually violent predator to be conditionally released. Brian DeVries lives in a trailier outside the main wall of a prison in the central California town of Soledad. "We were hoping we could work with the governor's office on this since there was already a precedent, and we may still try to do so," Van Kirk said. "We thought we had more time." Ghilotti, 47, a San Rafael native whose relatives own a prominent North Bay construction company, served five years in custody after being convicted for a spree of sex crimes and related residential break-ins in the Lincoln Avenue area of San Rafael in the late 1970s. He served another 12 years after being convicted for a second series of such crimes against two other victims in Ross and Corte Madera committed in 1985, less than a year after his initial release. Ghilotti was sent to Atascadero State Hospital in 1997 under terms of a state law that allows individuals with mental disorders who are designated as sexually violent predators to be held beyond the completion of their criminal sentences for two year stints. Ghilotti nearly became the first sexually violent to be conditionally released, in 2001, before dismissing a similar release plan as too restrictive. He will now become the third, after DeVries and Cary Verse, who initially was released to a Marin motel. In November, a Marin jury blocked Ghilotti's unconditional release by finding that he remained a threat to commit more sex crimes, even though he voluntarily had undergone surgical castration in 2002. The jury's decision, which triggered two more years of hospitalization, prompted Ghilotti and his public defender to pursue his conditional release to the home of his wife, a former Atascadero State Hospital worker. Contact Con Garretson via e-mail at cgarretson@marinij.com
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20040506-1413-ca-bakersfieldmolests.html Wrongly convicted man reflects on his 20 years in prison By Brian Skoloff
BAKERSFIELD – Even murderers and rapists detest child molesters. Behind bars, life can be brutal for people convicted of sexually abusing children – they're the bottom rung, marked men, constantly living in fear. Many seek shelter from other inmates by agreeing to "protective custody," rarely leaving their cells. Found guilty of 17 counts of child molestation, John Stoll knew he'd never survive with that stigma. So he lied, posing as a drug runner for 20 long years – and somehow avoided attack until his conviction was reversed last week. "I was terrified," said Stoll. "I knew the odds weren't real good that I wasn't going to get stabbed going to prison as a convicted child molester." Stoll walked free on Tuesday after most of his alleged victims recanted and said they lied about being molested back in 1984. During his first days in prison, Stoll began researching crimes that could carry a 20-year sentence. He came across a newspaper article about a man convicted of smuggling marijuana and guns. He became that man – "And that's what I was for 20 years." Stoll, now gray and balding, revealed details of his life in prison as he joined his lawyers for a celebratory meal on his first night as a free man – his 61st birthday. Gorging on filet mignon, calamari, and a chocolate birthday cake, he marveled at his freedom. But the past still lingers, one night in particular. A fellow inmate came to his cell – and said he knew Stoll's secret. The man had discovered his case in the prison law library. "He says to me, 'I've got paperwork on you,'" Stoll remembered. Then the cell doors closed for the night. Stoll thought it would be his last. "I could feel the blood draining from me. I was scared. I sat all night and didn't sleep," he said. "Who's going to let a child molester walk around. It's a pretty disgusting crime." By a stroke of luck, the next morning there was a riot in the "chow hall" and the inmate who threatened to expose Stoll was whisked away. A guard later came to Stoll's cell and handed him a bundle of the other inmate's papers – the details of Stoll's conviction. "I tore it up and flushed it down the toilet," Stoll said. "More than once, a prison staff member saved my life." Stoll refused the protective custody given to most child molesters because it meant 23 hours a day alone in a cell. He knew he couldn't take the solitude, so he banked on his drug-running story to keep him safe. Stoll's ability to keep his conviction a secret was "quite remarkable," said Anne Mania, an attorney at the San Rafael-based Prison Law Office, which handles civil rights issues for inmates. "There's a huge stigma attached to being a child molester so they're often the victims of violence by other prisoners," Mania explained. "A lot of them are parents and everybody can identify that the abuse of children, particularly sexual abuse of children, is wrong. There's never any justification for that, whereas somebody might be able to, in his or her mind, justify a murder or a rape." Stoll still can't believe he was never attacked. "For 20 years nobody stabbed me so I must've said the right things," Stoll said. "I don't know what kept me alive ... You're really walking a fine line in prison because you can't be yourself." As Stoll sat at the steakhouse dinner table, he cleaned his glasses with his cloth napkin and rubbed his head. He was a fit man when he went to prison in 1985, a carpenter with strong hands, a full head of dark blonde curly hair and a winning smile. Now, a row of deep wrinkles crosses his forehead, and his gray mustache frames a mouth with just seven teeth remaining. Stoll, who seemingly loves to laugh, lost most of his teeth to gum disease and medical neglect while in prison. "This is really embarrassing to have a mouth full of teeth like this. You can't even smile," Stoll said, practically gumming each bite of steak. Two Innocence Project groups in California won Stoll's freedom after tracking down his alleged victims and persuading most of them – now adults – to come forward once again. Prosecutors still maintain Stoll is guilty, but said they would not refile charges because of a lack of evidence and the recanted witness testimony. Stoll was convicted as part of an alleged child molestation ring that purportedly involved sodomy, group sex and pornographic photography. But no pictures were found – in fact, prosecutors presented no physical evidence at the trial. None of the children, ages 6 to 8, were examined by doctors. The case rested on testimony alone. Four of those accusers testified in January that investigators pressured them until they lied. A fifth testified he has no memories from that part of his childhood. The sixth, Stoll's own son, Jed, still insists his father molested him. Stoll blames that on a bitter custody dispute, saying his wife at the time had filled Jed's head with lies. He has no other family left. His mother, who paid for his defense, died while he was in prison. "But she always knew I was innocent," Stoll said. "That's what matters." Stoll left Avenal State Prison with $200, standard for released prisoners. "That's 10 bucks a year," he joked. "I've got nothing else left." He said he'll likely sue Kern County – as have six other vindicated child molestation defendants, some of whom have won millions in settlement money. Old friends have contacted him since his release, offering work and shelter. But he hasn't made any decisions. He spent his first night at one of his attorney's homes and went on a shopping spree at a mall Wednesday, buying a new pair of glasses and a set of clothes. He called the ordeal "sensory overload." When the birthday cake arrived at the table with a burning candle Tuesday night, Stoll's eyes widened. He grasped both sides of the plate, shaking nervously, closed his eyes and blew lightly. "My wish has been answered," he said.
Posted on Mon, Dec. 15, 2003 Are sex offenders a danger forever? State's formula simple, flawed By Sean Webby
The high-risk sex offenders' faces stare out from the database; some are actually smiling. They have been convicted of terrible crimes. Now they are free. Are they dangerous? It's a simple question that's nearly impossible to answer. A premise of Megan's Law is that sex offenders are always a threat to offend again. In varying ways, most states attempt to gauge the level of risk. But experts say that's a difficult task. There have been many studies of sex offenders' tendencies to reoffend, but they are contradictory. Details of a sex offender's past crimes may also provide clues about future tendencies, experts say, but California's sex offender database doesn't offer that sort of information. The state's Megan's Law takes one of the nation's simplest approaches to the dilemma of assessing risk: It divides nearly 100,000 registered sex offenders into three broad categories. • High-risk offenders -- there are 1,800 -- have been convicted of multiple violent offenses, including at least one sex crime. They are deemed the most likely to offend again. • Serious offenders, the largest category at about 80,000, are those convicted of a single, violent sex crime, ranging from felony sexual battery to continuous sexual abuse of a child. • Those designated as ``other'' -- about 16,600 -- have been convicted of crimes such as spousal rape or incest. The names of these offenders are not released. Researchers agree that repeat offenders are more likely to continue committing crimes than one-time offenders are. But even the lawyers who wrote California's categories into the law say they are imperfect measures of risk. If a sex offender were living on your street, you might want to know more -- and you might struggle to find out. Questions to consider • Who were the victims of the offender's crimes? Did the offender molest children or attack adults? Although the Megan's Law database describes crimes in the technical language of the state penal code, at least some of this information can be gleaned from those listings. • What were the circumstances? Did the crimes involve relatives or acquaintances, or did the offender kidnap and molest a stranger? Brian DeVries, the notorious sexual predator who was released from a state mental hospital in August by a San Jose judge, tended to molest young boys after befriending their mothers. But Jack Manes crawled through the pet doors in the homes of two Santa Rosa women he did not know, and sexually assaulted them. California's database doesn't include these details. But in Minnesota, anyone logging on to the state's sex offender database can learn the sex and age range of victims as well as the offender's relationship to the victims. • When were the crimes committed, and when was the offender released? If an offender's last conviction was 20 years ago and he's been out for 10 years, that may suggest he has been rehabilitated. But it may also be that he has continued to offend, and hasn't been caught. Regardless, California's Megan's Law list includes no information about when an offense was committed and when the offender was released. Nor does it regularly reclassify offenders based on changed circumstances; only one high-risk offender has ever been downgraded, after one of his convictions was overturned. • Has the offender been treated for mental problems? What is the offender's mental state now? Many states, such as New Jersey, Ohio and Vermont, evaluate the potential threat posed by an offender upon release. California looks only at the number and type of convictions to classify the offender. But as the San Jose police will tell you, when you look at an offender such as rapist Hector Chavez, there is more to know. ``We worry about Hector Chavez,'' said detective James Menard. Chavez is a 45-year-old diagnosed schizophrenic who hears voices and whose last known sex crime was an attack on a 42-year-old woman in Sunnyvale in 1989. Chavez has told police and the Mercury News that when his elderly mother dies, he will end up back in jail for settling old scores against unnamed people. Today, Chavez lives in an apartment about two blocks from San Jose State University. When contacted by the Mercury News, students and employees said they were unaware he lived nearby. Sitting alone in the lobby of his home recently, he ate white bread and scoffed at the notion that he would attack again. ``I'm supposed to be this big bad guy,'' Chavez said. ``I do admit I don't have a conscience. But no woman has to feel threatened about me because I have respected women in all there was of my life.'' Many people believe all sex offenders are doomed to repeat their crimes, driven by their criminal compulsions. ``It's like chocolate,'' said Berenice Arroyo, 18, who lives with her infant near a high-risk sex offender in Gilroy. ``If you like it, you will always want it.'' Studies conflict Scientists say the dynamics are far more complex. Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said the Megan's Law classifications of risk to reoffend are ``not based on good science.'' For sex offenders, recidivism -- the tendency to reoffend -- is about that for drunken drivers, he said. But Dr. Anna Salter, who has published several studies about recidivism among sex offenders, said that comparison is misleading. ``General criminal recidivism is astronomical. But recidivism of burglars and drunk drivers is not as harmful or as scary to us.'' Studies and statistics don't offer a definitive answer. In November, a U.S. Department of Justice study of 9,691 men convicted of rape, sexual assault and child molestation who were released in 1994 found that sex offenders were less likely to be rearrested after their release from prison than other criminals were. The study found that 43 percent of the sex offenders were arrested for any type of crime within three years, compared with 68 percent for all other former inmates. About 6 percent of the sex offenders were rearrested for a sex crime, the study found. But others studies show much higher rates. A Canadian research team's 1998 analysis of 61 studies from six countries, encompassing nearly 29,000 sex offenders, found that more than 13 percent of those offenders were rearrested for sex crimes within five years. Hard to predict Many experts say all studies of sex offender recidivism are flawed for one basic reason: They track only convictions. Sex crimes tend to be among the most underreported types of crimes, experts say, so many offenders are never caught -- and others may be charged for only a fraction of the crimes they commit. According to the state's categories, ``serious'' sex offenders should be less of a threat to commit another crime than high-risk offenders are. But in the South Bay, there are many examples of serious offenders who turned out to be predators -- among them violin teacher Scott Holiman, who was investigated in the alleged molestation of five students and ultimately convicted of molesting one child. In contrast, many of the South Bay's high-risk offenders haven't been convicted of a sex crime in more than a decade. San Jose registrant George McMahan is one of those. He is a high-risk sex offender not because he committed multiple sex crimes, but because he was convicted of a sexual assault and also a separate series of carjackings and robberies. Is he truly at high risk to rape again? Police say probably not. Offenders object Most of the high-risk sex offenders interviewed by the Mercury News said they objected to the Megan's Law categories -- mostly because these categories don't take into account their own unique circumstances. Only two of the child molesters interviewed by the Mercury News -- a
Santa Clara man and a San Jose man, both of whom spoke on the condition
of anonymity -- admitted they still had urges to be with children. Both
insisted, however, that they kept these urges ``under control.''
Contact Sean Webby at swebby@mercurynews.com
or (650) 688-7577.
© 2003 Mercury News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.latimes.com/la-me-girls23feb23,1,7415484.story Drifter Jailed on Girls' Lies Set Course of Desperation
February 23, 2004 Demoralized by 251 days in Orange County Jail, where he was wrongfully imprisoned by the lies of three girls, Eric Nordmark resolved to take matters into his own hands if convicted of assault and child molestation. As his trial began last month, the 36-year-old drifter devised a plan, he said in telephone interviews over the past week: He would smuggle a razor blade stuck to his skin with bar-code labels from the jail commissary. Then, awaiting sentencing in the courthouse holding cell, he'd slice open his carotid artery. Better that end, he decided, than a long stretch in the company of inmates notoriously brutal toward child molesters, followed by a lifetime of stigma if he survived incarceration. "My mind was made up," he said. Fortunately for Nordmark, two days into his trial, the 12-year-old girl who was his principal accuser admitted the wanton attack never occurred. The girl said the entire story about the attack in a Garden Grove park on May 15, 2003, was a hoax concocted by her and two friends of similar age as an excuse for getting home late from school. On Jan. 26, the defendant's waking bad dream abruptly ended. Nordmark, a college dropout, psychologist's son and former U.S. Army mortar man from Wisconsin, was set free. He departed for Seattle, where, he said, he hoped "to get back on my feet … [to] find some menial work and start paying rent." Blending In An itinerant laborer who follows the weather, Nordmark had spent much of last winter in San Diego County, where he readily blended in with Ocean Beach's melange of bohemians, bikers and faded hippies. The place was friendly territory for an aimless man with self-admitted "esteem issues," a taste for drink and a strong desire for anonymity. By May 2003, he was ready to go to the Pacific Northwest. Three days after departing, Nordmark spent a night in jail for public drunkenness in Anaheim, where he had hoped to meet a friend for the journey north. He was released Thursday, May 15. Late the following afternoon, he was searching for cigarette butts in neighboring Garden Grove when he was approached by a police officer. The next thing he knew, he was handcuffed and made to sit on a curb. "I asked if I was being arrested, or what?" he said. "He said I was being detained — that I matched a description." A police car cruised by twice, stopping each time about 50 feet away, while its occupants looked him over. The officer, he said, threatened to arrest him on suspicion of public drunkenness if he did not come to the Garden Grove police station to be photographed. He complied, and was released. Later that day, he happened on the site of the annual Garden Grove Strawberry Festival. He was promised work setting up carnival rides the following Tuesday, May 20. He wanted "a pocketful of cash" for a bus ticket to the Northwest. On the 20th, Nordmark said, he put in 13 hours of work at the festival. He had just returned to the festival grounds after buying beer and tobacco when police arrived. He said he heard someone call his name, and when he turned in response, he was handcuffed. "They're high-fiving each other," Nordmark recalled of two officers. "As the handcuffs were being placed, they said, 'You're under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon. The weapon is your hands.' I said, 'These hands are deadly if you're a mosquito. That's about it.' It's not in my nature to be violent." Not until his arraignment a few days later did he fully realize the nature of the seven charges against him. He was shackled with other defendants, but his charges weren't read aloud, apparently for his protection. A public defender confided to him: "You've got child molestation charges, pretty much." The 'Attack' The tale told by the three girls was shocking and vividly detailed: Walking home from Woodbury Elementary School on May 15, they passed a man lounging in Woodbury Park. As they left the park, the man suddenly appeared behind them. He grabbed one of them, pushed her onto her back and began pulling her hair and tearing at her shirt. When a second girl went to her friend's aid, the man grabbed her, pulled her hair and tried to strangle her. The first girl kicked the man in the groin, freeing the second, and the three girls ran to the safety of her gated Cynthia Circle apartment complex, the attacker calling after them, "It's not over!" Later, police interviewed the visibly shaken girls as a group. The girl who said she was attacked second, according to an officer who was present, kept rubbing her neck and spitting — the aftereffects, she said, of her near-strangling. They described the man as white, about 6 feet tall and wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt. The description was similar to one given by two boys from the same apartment complex, who said a stranger in the same park had approached them menacingly two days before. Nordmark's defense attorney, David Swanson of Irvine, contends this was one of the first opportunities police had to uncover the girls' lie: Interviewing them in a group may have allowed them to coordinate their stories more easily and deliver a consistent description of their fictional attacker, he said. The girls' relatives have declined to discuss the case in recent weeks. But two women who live in the second girl's apartment complex said she took four people to the site of the alleged attack a few days later, and vividly recounted the details, grabbing her neck and pulling her hair to demonstrate. "Her story was so horrible and sounded so real ... everyone felt so sorry for her," said one of the women, who declined to be identified. "She repeated the story to anyone who would listen." The girls' story infused Garden Grove police with a sense of urgency. "We thought we had a sexual predator on the loose and we needed to act quickly," said Lt. Mike Handfield. "Who would have expected 11-year-olds to come up with this story?" On May 16, the day after the reported attack, a Garden Grove officer spotted Nordmark and, based on the girls' description, detained him while two of the girls were driven by separately to look at him. One girl said he was not the attacker, but the girl who said she had been attacked second said she recognized him and began to cry. It was four days later that a police detective brought six mug shots, including one taken of Nordmark after he had been charged with public drunkenness in Anaheim, to the girls. Two of the three picked out Nordmark's picture. Nordmark was arrested that day. Swanson has raised many questions about how police handled the identification. For example, by allowing each girl to fetch the next after they had examined the mug shots provided them the opportunity to secretly agree on which one — No. 5 — they should choose. The defense attorney also criticized police for not shuffling the order of the mug shots before each girl viewed them. At each viewing, Nordmark's picture was the fifth in the series of six. U.S. Department of Justice guidelines for conducting photo lineups encourage police to "consider placing suspects in different positions in each lineup." City officials have strongly supported police handling of the case. The girls, said Mayor Bruce Broadwater, are "100% to blame." "Ask the judge what he thought of the witness," he said. The girl who said she was the second attacked by Nordmark, the only one to testify, "was on the stand the whole day. And everyone believed her. She was a very credible witness." But Broadwater agreed that in presenting the mug shots, officers "made an error. We're well aware of that. It's a minor error, but it's an error. They didn't switch the pictures." Jail Time During his eight months in Orange County's Theo Lacy Branch Jail, Nordmark said he passed the time playing chess and doing New York Times crossword puzzles. Other inmates referred to him as "Harry Potter," after the bespectacled English schoolboy of J.K. Rowling's novels. In an odd coincidence, Nordmark shared a jail cubicle for a time with a man who he figured out during the trial was the older brother of his principal accuser. Nordmark noticed a facial resemblance between the man and the girl testifying against him. "He was a nice guy," Nordmark recalled. "He said he had a little sister … whose birthday is in October. He wanted to send [her] a birthday greeting, and he asked me how … to write a birthday greeting." In regular telephone calls to his father, Torberg Nordmark, a retired psychologist in Phoenix, Nordmark poured out his anxiety about the fate he feared awaited him. Both he and Swanson, his lawyer, were convinced the girls had been attacked, and thought there had only been a mistake in identifying a suspect. "I believed her," he said, referring to the only girl to testify. "But she wasn't making eye contact with me. I told Swanson, 'Is she aware that I'm the one charged with attacking her? I don't think she thinks I'm the attacker. I don't think this kid knows I'm the one being charged with that.' " The following Monday, when the second day of the trial was to take place, Nordmark found himself being treated somewhat more kindly by the court bailiff. The man led him to the courtroom down a hallway where prisoners usually weren't permitted. As soon as he entered the courtroom, he knew something was amiss. "I'm standing there, and I'm thinking, 'Wait a minute. There's nobody here except my attorney, the prosecutor and the child.' " Then, Deputy Dist. Atty. Heather Brown entered a motion to dismiss the charges. "Swanson turned to me and said the whole thing was fabricated. He looked at me and smiled. He said, 'Dude, you're going home tonight.' But I said, 'I'm still in Orange County.' " Nordmark remains bitter at Garden Grove police and has filed a complaint against the department. "They say they're there to serve and protect the public. But that doesn't apply to me," he said. "To me, they pin, nail and degrade." He is just as contemptuous of their efforts to prosecute the three girls — who have been arrested and face charges of conspiracy and perjury — and possibly their relatives as well for the lie that stole eight months of his life. The girls don't need punishment, he said, but discipline. The police, he said, are "doing to them what they did to me — narrowing their focus on what they think rather than trying to learn the truth." Since his release, Nordmark said, his fortunes have improved: He has received about $2,000 in small donations from strangers who read or heard about his case. And two recent developments, he said, have given him new hope for a more stable life. After arriving in Washington this month, Nordmark had been staying in homeless shelters and seedy motels, but this week obtained an apartment. And he landed a full-time job sorting clothing from Goodwill collection boxes. "It's not going to be a career move," he said, "but it's one step on
the ladder."
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-molester25feb25,1,5610892.story?coll=la-headlines-california
February 25, 2004 BAKERSFIELD — A former sheriff's deputy denied Tuesday that he had coerced children to testify falsely against an accused child molester who is trying to gain his freedom after nearly 20 years in prison. Called by the prosecution in an attempt to keep John Stoll behind bars, Conny Ericsson denied that he had asked leading questions or harassed a half-dozen children to help convict Stoll in 1984. "I never suggested," said Ericsson, who now works for the state Department of Justice in Redding. In questioning a child, he said, "I asked what happened to him." Stoll, a carpenter who was engaged in a custody battle with his wife, was convicted of being the leader of a molestation ring that allegedly preyed on young children in his middle-class neighborhood. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison, but is now trying to win his freedom, claiming that overzealous law-enforcement officials botched the initial investigation. In January, four of the six alleged victims testified, some in tears, that Stoll had never touched them. The alleged victims, all young adults now, said they had lied on the witness stand simply to make the prosecutors and Kern County sheriff's deputies stop badgering and, in some cases, threatening them. The Stoll group was one of eight alleged molestation and child pornography rings identified by Kern County authorities in the mid-1980s. Though dozens of people went to jail, most were later set free after appellate courts reversed their convictions, citing prosecutorial misconduct and other errors. The Bakersfield cases were the first in a series of alleged multiple-victim child-abuse cases in the nation in the '80s, predating the notorious McMartin prosecution involving workers at a Manhattan Beach pre-school. Stoll's public-interest attorneys presented their case in January. This week was the prosecution's turn, and Ericsson was a key witness because he was the lead investigator in the case 20 years ago. During two days on the witness stand, he repeatedly denied having shaped the children's testimony. Stoll's lawyers, from the California Innocence Project in San Diego and the Northern California Innocence Project in Santa Clara, challenged his memory and his failure to seek independent evidence of molestations. "I didn't think he could make up the things he told us," Ericsson said of one alleged victim. "He would have to have experience." The idea that children didn't lie about abuse was a popular concept in the '80s. It has since been challenged by many researchers, who say children are as able to lie about abuse as anything else, especially if they are given cues by authority figures as to what they should say. The prosecution case was dealt a setback Tuesday when yet another person from the 1984 case recanted. This time it was a cellmate of Stoll's, who gave a statement to detectives 20 years ago that Stoll had admitted the molestations to him. Prosecutor Lisa Green called him to court Tuesday but Terry Hammond, 48, informed her that he had lied in 1984 in hopes of getting a deal in his own case, so Green didn't put him on the stand. An attorney for Stoll, Justin Brooks, said Hammond had told him that he didn't mind lying about Stoll in 1984, when he believed Stoll was guilty. After hearing of Stoll's efforts to win his freedom, Brooks said, Hammond regretted his original statements and declined to testify against Stoll this week, despite pressure from local law enforcement officials in Ridgecrest, where Hammond lives. Efforts to reach Hammond were unsuccessful. Green declined to discuss the case. The hearing is to continue today with testimony expected from the prosecution's star witness, John Stoll's son, Jed, the only original child involved who still maintains that molestations took place. (The other alleged victim said he had no memory either way.) Stoll's attorneys tried to prepare for the son by calling an expert witness, Dr. James Wood, who said that young children — Jed was 6 at the time — can be led to believe things happened that didn't if they are questioned repeatedly in a suggestive way. Among those in court this week has been Jeff Modahl, the alleged leader of another purported molestation ring who spent 15 years in prison before being freed in 1999. Modahl, who won a portion of a $4-million settlement from Kern County, now lives on a small farm in Nebraska. He said that when he heard Stoll was fighting for his freedom, he had driven 1,600 miles in 28 hours to be in court. "A lot of people helped me," said Modahl, a burly man of 50. "Any way I can help John," he would, he said. Modahl sat outside court Monday afternoon chatting with Ericsson, who was the lead detective in his case as well. Modahl, who said he still has nightmares in which he wakes up and expects to see a metal bunk above his head, said he didn't hold a grudge against county law enforcement officials. "If I sit and hold a grudge," he said, "I'd be ate up."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-stange22feb22,1,4661415.story COMMENTARY
February 22, 2004 "The person I know would never go and abduct a little girl … in his right mind." So Joseph P. Smith's boss told NBC News about the mechanic charged with kidnapping and murdering 11-year-old Carlie Brucia in Sarasota, Fla. Another of Smith's friends, one of several who had identified him from the surveillance video, remarked: "I never would have thought he was capable, but then I read about his history. It's a big pill to swallow." Most people, hearing such comments, probably would wonder how these men could be so gullible. I don't. My husband's best friend is a convicted sex offender. My husband, Doug, and his friend — I'll call him Jack — had been buddies since junior high; they hunted and fished together; they double-dated. Doug went on to become a college professor, and Jack, a physician. They kept in close touch, and their friendship endured over decades and distance. After a stint in the Army during the Vietnam era, Jack established a thriving practice in a small Midwestern town. The only MD in the area, he was the kind of talented general practitioner such rural communities needed. He married a local woman, bought a farm of his own and settled into a "pillar of the community" role. Then, 14 years ago, a complaint to the state medical board led to a criminal investigation. It turned up a pattern of sexual abuse of adolescent girls during gynecological exams. Jack had been the only doctor within a 100-mile radius who would provide gynecological services, including birth control, for teenage girls without telling their parents. Jack was convicted on 18 counts of sexual misconduct and sentenced to eight to 12 years in prison. New allegations arose, some of which were addressed in civil cases: that he had repeatedly fondled a young niece; that he had raped his wife's younger sister; that he had committed incest with one or both of his now-adult daughters from his first marriage; that he sexually abused one of his infant sons. Every charge, as Smith's friend said, was a big pill to swallow. But the evidence was generally compelling. Doug had to admit that the charges were probably true. The most skillful sexual predators don't advertise their perversion: Even his best friend might not know what a country doctor was capable of. Jack has never acknowledged his guilt. Diagnosed as a "sexually predacious personality" and a "sexually dangerous person," he is classified at the top of the scale as a Level 3 sex offender. Throughout his time in prison, he refused to cooperate in the mandated therapeutic program. Jack committed his crimes in one of the 16 states that allow for the civil commitment of dangerous sex offenders when their terms are up. After eight years, considering the severity of his crimes and the subsequent allegations, a judge sent Jack, against his will, to a state psychiatric facility. The commitment of convicts who have served their time raises serious civil liberty issues. It means the state can keep them locked away indefinitely, not until they complete a term of punishment but until they are deemed to have been cured. Yet because sexual offenders are more likely to re-offend than any other class of violent criminal, this may be the only reasonable solution for certain sexual predators. Smith is a case in point. Of his 13 prior arrests, one was an attempted kidnapping, another was an assault on a woman. Joey Brucia, Carlie's father, justifiably complained that Smith "shouldn't have been out on the street." In this case, as in so many abductions and murders of girls and women, the system clearly failed. The system fails offenders like Jack as well. One reason he didn't cooperate with treatment in prison was that to do so could have been seen as admitting guilt, and he was at the same time (ultimately unsuccessfully) appealing his conviction. More important, the rehabilitation offered sex offenders in prison is demonstrably ineffective, given the rate of those who are released only to re-offend. Jack was, as one of the jurors in his case remarked, "in every other respect" a gifted physician. His wife stood by him throughout his legal appeals, raising their five children and running herself into debt before finally divorcing him. Doug too stood by him. It has not been easy. Repellent as Jack's crimes are to him, he misses his friend of 50 years. You don't just give up on your oldest friend. He wishes Jack's therapists could get through to him. He wishes Jack were more cooperative in treatment. He wishes the system worked so that civil commitment was unnecessary. It's another bitter pill to swallow, sacrificing civil liberties for
public safety: Until we find more satisfactory solutions than the flawed
system currently affords, locking up offenders who show no evidence of
reform is the one reliable way to keep crimes like the killing of Carlie
Brucia from happening.
Mary Zeiss Stange teaches women's studies and religion at Skidmore College.
State law threatened by public's revulsion to sex offenders
Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/03/08/MNGNA5GC0I1.DTL
When would-be neighbors ran Cary Verse out of Marin County, it raised issues much more far reaching than where the convicted sex offender would go next. In fact, some experts say, at stake is the very future of California's controversial 1996 law allowing authorities to commit "sexually violent predators'' to mental hospitals after they have served their prison sentences. The idea is to provide treatment and therapy to the worst offenders until they are judged to be no threat to the public and can be conditionally released. But if no community will accept them, experts say, the validity of the law is open to challenge. It is a threat that state officials, legislators, police and citizens are confronting as more and more of those put in mental hospitals complete their treatment programs and become eligible for release under certain conditions, such as being fitted with electronic tracking devices. John Rodriguez, a deputy director of the state Department of Mental Health, which oversees the treatment program for sexually violent predators, said the 1996 law mandates that these patients be released when they have completed their required treatment. "If there isn't that (outpatient) option" because the public won't allow it, Rodriguez said, "the statute will end up being challenged constitutionally. My fear is that if the court found that we weren't operating this program constitutionally, the patients could be released unconditionally." Verse, 33, a Bay Area felon whose string of sexual assaults began when he was 17, was one of 430 sexually violent predators being held at Atascadero State Hospital before his release last month. An additional 100 offenders are waiting to be committed to the program. Verse was the second designated sex predator released by the Department of Mental Health, and the second to generate waves of protests and angry rhetoric from would-be neighbors. Further protests are expected when rapist Patrick Ghilotti of San Rafael is released, probably at the end of this month. Six more high-risk sex predators probably will be released within a year, according to health department officials. Rodriguez said the state, in consultation with the Legislature, is beginning to re-examine the program in an effort to head off any potential court action. Among the possibilities being considered is the establishment of transitional housing, or a designated halfway house, for released sex offenders. The model for such a program already exists in Spokane, Wash. For the past five years, Linda A. Wolfe-Dawidjan has been renting every room in her building, the New Washington Apartments, to sex offenders. She works closely with the local police and the Washington State Department of Corrections. Wolfe-Dawidjan provides rooms to 50 offenders, each of whom pays $250 a month, often subsidized by the state. She appoints tenant managers, who must take regular polygraph tests and are tasked to keep a sharp eye out for deviant behavior. All the tenants on probation, and every guest must sign in and out of the building. No minors are allowed on the premises. "I'm not an advocate for the sex offender,'' Wolfe-Dawidjan said. "I have grandchildren, and I don't know what I'd do if somebody hurt them. "But the judicial system has to let them out, so what else are we going to do?" she said. "I really feel I've done something to help protect the victim. This is a place where they are held accountable." Tom Tobin, a clinical psychologist who runs Sharper Future, a San Francisco treatment program for sex offenders, said such a halfway house in California would be the ideal solution. "The state's program is trying to solve a problem that we in society must solve," he said. "In essence, it comes down to this: Do we want our sex offenders living under bridges and homeless, or do we prefer to have them managed in the community?" But Tobin and others in the field said homes like Wolfe-Dawidjan's aren't as easy to establish as they sound. "Where would you locate such a facility?'' Tobin asked. "Who would be willing to have such a facility nearby? It's a dilemma when you go to the community and ask them, 'Where should we put these people -- this is our problem,' and the community says, 'Our problem? This is your problem.' " Law enforcement officials are particularly angry at state mental health officials for releasing potentially violent offenders without notice into communities far from where they committed their crimes. "It's unconscionable that they would have a high-risk sexual predator placed in a community and not notify the community," said Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle, who is still angry that nobody from the state informed him last month that they would be placing Verse in his county. Verse, who was originally convicted in Contra Costa County, was driven out of a motel in unincorporated Mill Valley after being hounded for a week by protesters. Oakland's police chief was also furious when the four-time rapist was moved, under a shroud of secrecy, to that city. The manager of the hotel where he was placed has threatened to kick him out, but he remains there under constant media scrutiny. "The state needs to rethink this whole program or this is going to go on and on and on," said Doyle, whose department issued a press release with Verse's location as soon as it was learned he was in the county. "Just dumping them in somebody's community is not something people will accept. It's not working." A case in point is Brian DeVries, the only other predator to be released so far. Rodriguez said his department had contacted more than 100 sites, but nobody would take him. It got so bad that a judge in Santa Clara County threatened to set DeVries free without any conditions if the state could not find him housing. In desperation, officials put DeVries in a trailer on prison grounds in Soledad. Ghilotti, meanwhile, is scheduled to be released March 25 if lawyers can agree on conditions and the state can find a place for him to live. "It makes sense to have some transitional housing. That is an approach that we're looking at, but we don't have the property yet," said Rodriguez, whose department is building a $365 million, 1,500-bed hospital in Coalinga that is expected to house as many as 600 sex offenders by 2005. "I will tell you, though, that wherever that housing is, the locals there are going to have the same kinds of concerns." Wolfe-Dawidjan, who deals with convicted sex offenders every day, said the issue of where to house and care for these people is something everyone must think about, not for the benefit of the sex offender, but for the betterment of society. "I know where my sex offenders are," Wolfe-Dawidjan said, outlining the crux of the matter. "Do you know where yours are?" E-mail Peter Fimrite at pfimrite@sfchronicle.com
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The wrong way to treat predators Thursday, March 18, 2004
URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/18/EDGB95M6UU1.DTL
THE PUBLIC has no sympathy for sex offenders, especially violent ones. The case of Cary Verse, chased from three locations in five weeks, makes it plain how frightening these predators are. So where can he and other sexually violent criminals go when their prison time is up? Verse represents the front of the line of ex-convicts primed for release after serving prison terms and undergoing heavy-duty therapy. No community wants these sex offenders, and the state's fumbled handling of the issue hasn't helped. The answer clearly won't come from bullhorn demagogues such as Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. He loudly badgered an Oakland priest who provided a room for Verse until the offender moved out. The solution also won't come from puzzled and furious residents who weren't informed of or prepared for Verse's arrival first in Mill Valley, two locations in Oakland and now a motel in San Jose. These communities can't be blamed for their anger when a convicted predator arrives without explanation. The answer needs to come from state authorities -- including their political mentors -- who devised a promising rehabilitation program and then ditched their responsibilities when it counted most. The solution, which takes leadership, will be a frank description of the risks that these offenders pose and a promise to shelter them securely and protect the public. Verse illustrates the problems and potential of California's situation. He is a four-time loser who left state prison six years ago for a state mental hospital. He was one of 459 violent sex offenders kept there as part of a state mental health department program that offers two years of mental therapy as a requirement for release. Verse is the second sex predator to be judged ready for the outside world from an initial group of 100 undergoing treatment. The first released, Brian DeVries, was a similar lightning rod for public fury and now lives on the grounds of Soledad state prison. Next up for release is Patrick Ghilotti, a rapist from San Rafael. Now that he is outside, Verse is drugged to quell his sex drive and wears a location-marking device at all times. Drugs, fights or anything close to a sexual encounter would land him back in the lockup. The program may not impress those who note that such predators come with severe mental disorders that rule out any cure. Also, the track record of the program is hardly convincing with only two men released to the outside. But because of time served, these lawbreakers can't be locked up forever. Voluntary therapy and strict supervision, as Verse accepted, is better than no admission of personal problems when a convict exits the prison gates. Given the public outcry, both Verse and DeVries, in effect, have nowhere to go. The state must revisit the 1996 law that set up the therapy and re- entry program to see that it goes the full distance by providing a place to live. Other states, notably Washington, have set up halfway houses designed for sex offenders. Locating these will be a huge headache, but the current hit-or- miss system doesn't work. As more sex offenders become ready for release, the need for such a facility will grow. California needs to protect itself from the risk these offenders pose.
But if state authorities truly believe their rehabilitation program will
work, they must do more than dump dangerous ex-criminals on unsuspecting
communities. The pattern fails both offenders and the public.
Dealing with sex offenders
11:37 PM PST on Saturday, March 20, 2004
CASSIE MACDUFF Last October, parents in a Sun City neighborhood were stunned to find out that their children had been playing regularly near the home of a high-risk sex offender who had moved in a few months before. A few weeks later, parents in Glen Avon were stunned to learn that a man who had been coaching their youngsters' Little League for several years was a convicted child molester using a fake name. In each case, understandably, the parents felt they should have been alerted sooner to the sex offenders' presence, so they could protect their children. These are exactly the types of cases Megan's Law was meant to prevent, by giving the public access to the whereabouts of registered sex offenders. Many times, people using Megan's Law computers to view sex-offender data recognize a rapist as the maintenance worker at their apartment complex, or a child molester as the man hanging out at a local park, said Hallye Jordan, spokeswoman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer. Authorities in San Bernardino and Riverside counties have taken steps to post information on the Internet about the worst sex offenders living in their communities, offenders considered most likely to reoffend. Last week, San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod posted the names, photographs and offenses of 13 high-risk sex offenders on the Internet. (Nine others were not posted, because they've gone years without getting in trouble again.) On Monday, Riverside County Sheriff Bob Doyle will post similar information on 27 high-risk sex offenders. Both departments had been working on plans to put sex-offender information online, but the efforts kicked into high gear at the urging of Inland Republican state Sens. Jim Battin and Jim Brulte. It's an important step in empowering communities to protect themselves. But at some point, the public's right to know clashes with the public policy of helping offenders who've paid their debt to society rehabilitate and become productive citizens. Take, for example, what happened five months ago when a convicted child molester released from Patton State Hospital was run out of three successive neighborhoods where he tried to settle in Riverside. He finally moved to San Bernardino, declaring himself a transient with no address for police to keep tabs on him. Information that empowers one neighborhood can merely push a problem into another. Or consider what happened last week in Phelan, the High Desert community where enraged citizens kept vigil outside a home where the Department of Developmental Services wanted to place four mentally retarded sex offenders. The state backed down after the county threatened to sue. But eventually, those developmentally disabled men will live somewhere. There are close to 100,000 registered sex offenders in California. More than 1,800 of them are considered high-risk, and 587 of those are living in local communities, Jordan said. What should society do with these people when they're released from prison? What community will willingly accept them? Should they be isolated on an Alcatraz or a Devil's Island? The great minds in Sacramento need to come up with a solution, because as the sex-offender information is increasingly posted on the Internet, this problem is not going to go away. Reach Cassie MacDuff at (909) 806-3068 or cmacduff@pe.com
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http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/8783102p-9710470c.html These sexual predators go free and unnoticed By Suzanne Bohan -- Bee Correspondent - (Published April 6, 2004)
The freed man quietly slipped back into society, with no public response to his release. The man, whose identity is withheld by the California Department of Mental Health, is one of 30 offenders sprung from the program since 1998 even though they received little or no treatment for the mental maladies that led them to commit rape or child molestation. On the same day, Cary Verse, another ex-convict in the Atascadero State Hospital program, was forced to move - again - after protesters and local officials pressured him to leave an Oakland abbey that offered him temporary shelter. Verse, convicted of four sexually violent offenses, is in the final phase of the arduous treatment plan he opted to join. Verse and convicted child molester Brian DeVries are the only men who have successfully completed the in-hospital phase of the treatment and moved into the closely supervised community treatment phase, called conditional release. A third convicted offender, rapist Patrick Ghilotti, is expected to enter conditional release later this spring. But their participation in the treatment - during which they admit to wrongdoing, acknowledge the damage they've done and take steps to heal - also makes them easy targets for public ire. After leaving Atascadero, Verse and DeVries have faced wall-to-wall media coverage, angry citizen protests and denunciations by local officials. Meanwhile, virtual silence greeted the 30 convicted sexually violent offenders freed without condition and with little or no therapeutic treatment. The contrast isn't lost on John Rodriguez, director of the long-term care program in the mental health department. "Why does everybody freak out over Cary Verse and Brian DeVries and not these guys?," asked Rodriguez. "That's the quandary I think about and face all the time." Dennis Doren, a national expert on sexually violent offender treatment, said the focus on those in conditional release programs is misplaced. "I'm going to be worried about somebody who's (unconditionally) discharged more than I'm going to be worried about someone who's under supervision," said Doren, who is studying patient releases in the 17 states with programs. There are nearly 100,000 registered sex offenders in California. Under Megan's Law, they're required to register with the law enforcement agency in the community in which they settle. But in 1996, state law created a new, more visible category of sex offender, called "sexually violent predators." These inmates have two or more convictions for rape or child molestation. Under the "civil commitment" statute, after their prison terms, these convicts may remain confined in the state's high-security psychiatric facility in Atascadero if it's deemed they pose a likely danger of re-offending. Rodriguez said of the 5,321 convicts referred for civil commitment since 1996, only 462 have met the legal requirements: two psychiatric evaluations, a court ruling and a jury or judge's decision. Many held under civil commitment resent the detention, Rodriguez said, and California's unique version of the law gives them a recurring chance to exit it without any treatment. "California has a peculiar statute, in that commitment is just two years," noted Doren. "Then the prosecutor has to re-prove their case," he said. The state's unusual loophole would be closed by a budget amendment introduced April 1 by the administration that would eliminate the requirement that sexually violent offenders be released after the two-year commitment period, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The amendment would put California's law on par with other states' sexually violent offender statutes, in requiring indeterminate detention for offenders committed to the program. The new law would be retroactive to include those already detained. "Right now ... the burden of proof is on the state to justify keeping someone in the (program)" said Palmer. "We think that burden ought to be on the other side of the scales." George Bukowski, who oversees patient evaluations for the sex offender commitment program, said 19 of the 30 men released unconditionally were still deemed as likely to commit more acts of sexual violence. They were released by either a jury decision, an appeals court or because a county prosecutor withdrew or declined to file a petition to keep the offender in the program. Bukowski said 11 men were found by department staff to no longer pose a likely danger of committing future sexual offenses. A state spokeswoman said no information is available on recidivism rates by the 30 violent sex offenders, as the department isn't required to track that data. In other states, patients remain in treatment programs until they meet the criteria for release, Doren said. Some refuse treatment, but a majority engage in it to regain their freedom. A small percentage have successfully petitioned a court to grant them release, he added. But of the 367 ex-convicts in the California's sexually violent predator program, more than 60 percent refuse any therapy, according to Rodriguez. Instead, they spend much of their time reading, watching TV, engaging in disruptive behavior with other patients or staff, or pursuing their legal options for getting out, he said. Staff can't force those committed to participate in therapy. Those who do participate in treatment and earn conditional release become the most closely watched ex-convicts in the country. They're tracked with a Global-Positioning System satellite and log their daily activities. They attend regular therapy sessions and may take medicines to reduce their sex drive. But unlike those freed from the sexually violent predator program without restrictions, these men have found it impossible to find a steady home outside institutional grounds. Verse has been rejected by landlords in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and Santa Clara counties, after public protests erupted after his arrival. The mental health department declined to state his current whereabouts, citing a court-ordered injunction against discussing his case. DeVries was rejected by more than 100 landlords before he found a home in August on state prison grounds in Soledad. Residents in Vacaville, where Ghilotti plans to live with his wife, vow he won't remain there. If public outrage pushes conditionally released ex-convicts out of community after community, authorities say they may be forced to release the men from court-monitored outpatient treatment to keep from violating their constitutional rights. As it stands, California's unusual two-year "re-try" rule adds up to big costs for the mental health department and the court system, said Anna Salter, another national expert on sexually violent offenders. The law requires a $2,500 psychiatric evaluation every two years for each inmate in the program. Salter also warned that costs could swell as the population of sexually violent offender held under civil commitment expands. Each patient enrolled in the program costs $110,000 a year for in-hospital care, said Rodriguez, whether the ex-convict participates in treatment or not. Those treated in the community under conditional release cost about $180,000 a year. When the $60 million sexually violent offender program moves to a facility in Coalinga in 2005, patients who refuse treatment will be housed in a wing that has fewer clinical staff and more hospital police officers, said Rodriguez who expects to save up to $9 million a year. Still, Salter added, "I don't think people had a clue as to what this
will cost."
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http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/state/8516430.htm Posted on Sun, Apr. 25, 2004 Convicted molester freed after men recant By Kim Curtis
SAN FRANCISCO - A man convicted of molesting two boys figured there was only one way out of California's hospital for the criminally insane, where he was stuck indefinitely after being labeled a sexually violent predator. After maintaining his innocence for nearly two decades, James Rodriguez realized he would have to say he committed the crimes that put him in prison and then in Atascadero State Hospital. There was only one problem -- Rodriguez says he never molested the boys in the first place. So he had to learn how to play the part of a sex offender -- just what he would have to say about an attraction to young boys, how he knew it was wrong but couldn't stop. It was the only way to convince the hospital staff he had learned the error of his ways and should be set free. "I went and hung out with the pedophiles," said Rodriguez, now 43. "I got into their heads and figured out what to say and what not to say. (One pedophile) grilled me for hours and asked me all these questions. Then he'd say, 'No, don't say that, say this.'" The doctors believed him. Like most of the approximately 500 men languishing at Atascadero after being labeled sexually violent predators, Rodriguez had refused to discuss any sex offenses, a key step in the treatment they're supposed to receive. The men know that anything they say can be used against them, possibly to keep them behind bars forever. Psychologist Beth Thompson, who treated Rodriguez until she quit last month, was relieved that he finally began the treatment. Otherwise, "he'd just sit around like the rest of the guys watching TV and popping popcorn." But as Rodriguez was learning how to talk like a sex offender, the case against him was falling apart. To keep sexually violent predators behind bars after they've served their prison sentences, the state must recommit them to Atascadero every two years, arguing that they continue to pose a danger to society. But Rodriguez's latest recommitment hearing kept getting postponed. Carlos Monagas, an assistant district attorney in Riverside County, was preparing the victims for the hearing when they suddenly recanted, telling him that the whole sex abuse story was fiction. Now in their 30s, the older brother is severely mentally disabled and lives in a group home. The younger, who lives with his father after being in prison himself, told Monagas their aunt had pressured the boys to falsely accuse five men of molesting them. Monagas still believes the original convictions were valid, but now acknowledges that the state can't keep Rodriguez locked up any longer. He sent the tape-recorded recantations to his public defender. "We simply do not have the evidence to proceed," Monagas said. Rodriguez had pleaded guilty in the mid-1980s to molesting the brothers, ages 12 and 10. Authorities said Rodriguez, along with the boys' father, their uncle and two other men, had sodomized the boys and forced them to use drugs and engage in sex with their mother. Rodriguez said he was under the influence of methamphetamine at the time and didn't remember any abuse. He had a misdemeanor arrest record for drug possession and petty theft, but no history of sex-related crimes. Rodriguez said no one believed him, and that he was pressured into pleading guilty because prosecutors were talking "hundreds of years." He said he felt bad for the boys, and didn't want them to have to testify. "I didn't feel it was my place to put them through being questioned on the stand. It was ugly," Rodriguez said. So, he spent 13 years in prison, joining the many inmates who regularly proclaim their innocence. Then, in 1998, he was classified as a sexually violent predator, enabling the state to keep him locked up until he could be deemed safe for society. "He met the criteria," Thompson said. "He had two or more stranger victims. You're in and there's no getting out until you go through the treatment." But Thompson said Rodriguez never fit the mold of child molester. "He really didn't acknowledge his paraphilia, the attraction he had for kids," Thompson said. "It makes sense now. He couldn't do it. But I guess that's something he would've learned to fake, as well. We were hearing what we wanted to hear, which was 'I did it. I'm remorseful.'" On the morning of her last day at the hospital, Thompson learned why Rodriguez's therapy sessions didn't quite ring true. His public defender e-mailed her, saying because the victims had recanted, the prosecutor was dropping the recommitment petition. Rodriguez would soon be freed. "I couldn't believe it," Thompson said. "I went and confronted Rodriguez about it. He said, 'Doc, I've been telling you guys this for the last five-and-a-half years and no one would believe me.'" Nora Romero, spokeswoman for the state Department of Mental Health, which runs the program, refused to comment on Rodriguez's case. Rodriguez, release order in hand, changed out of his khaki uniform Monday, and was dropped off at the nearest bus station with $59 to his name. He visited his 22-year-old son, then moved on to his old Indian reservation near San Diego, where members of his tribe have offered him a job. In a telephone interview Wednesday, he said that all the sights and sounds of the free world were overwhelming him -- even walking into a grocery store seemed scary. But he also sounded optimistic. "I'm grateful to (the brothers) for coming forward after all these years," said Rodriguez, who plans to consult a lawyer about his options. "Even though my name isn't cleared yet, it will be." For now, he remains a twice-convicted sex offender who must register with authorities each year on his birthday. As for Thompson, she says she's "very burnt out" and has lost some faith in the system. If Rodriguez lied his way through treatment, she believes others could -- and would. "He said he had no choice," she said. "And he didn't." |
