6-16-2013 Washington:A 43-year-old former Cowlitz County sex offender has been declared a “sexually violent predator” following his prison sentence but will likely be allowed to live in public under strict supervision, authorities said.
Philip Eason admitted while serving his 11-year prison sentence to abusing 14 boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 12 and has been convicted of five counts of sex abuse, according to court documents. Some of his other victims were in Arizona.
Under state law, the state Attorney General’s Office can petition to have sex offenders believed to be at high risk of re-offending held indefinitely in a treatment facility. Such commitments are subject to an annual review.
If a judge or jury agrees, most civilly committed offenders are sent to a treatment center on McNeil Island, in Puget Sound near Tacoma. Others are placed on a strict regimen of mental health treatment and supervision, but they aren’t locked up.
That will be the case with Eason.
His civil commitment trial was getting underway this month when he agreed at to a last-minute deal keeping him off McNeil Island.
Under the deal, Eason acknowledged he is a sexually violent predator and will receive regular sex offender treatment and supervision from the state Department of Corrections, said Brooke Burbank, the section chief for the state Attorney General’s sexually violent predator unit.
Where exactly Eason will live is unclear.
“I am not aware of the specific plans for Mr. Eason’s housing. That remains to be worked out,” Burbank wrote in an email. “He will have an ankle bracelet and very specific conditions about what he can do and where he can go and when.”
In a deal with prosecutors, Eason pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child molestation in 2000 after he was accused of molesting three Woodland boys between the ages of 3 and 8. He was sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison. Following his release, he was housed at McNeil Island awaiting the outcome of his civil commitment trial.
Burbank said it’s unclear when he will be allowed to leave the McNeil Island treatment facility under his new supervision regimen. She estimated it could take up to six months.
“We thought it was a good resolution,” Burbank said of the deal with Eason. “And if he blows it in any regard ... he’ll go back to (McNeil Island) for a long time.”
The Attorney General’s Office tries to civilly commit less than 2 percent of the sex offenders released from prison, Burbank said. In all, she said, 267 sex offenders are housed under the law at McNeil Island and another 25 are, like Eason, allowed to live in the public.
Two Cowlitz County sex offenders, including Eason, have been civilly committed under the sexually violent predator law since 2011, according to statistics provided by the Attorney General’s Office.
Statewide, there were 49 sex offender civil commitments between 2010 and this month.
Separately, the civil commitment trial for another Cowlitz County sex offender is scheduled to start next month.
That offender, Garner D. Chastain, 60, pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors in 2007 to second-degree attempted child molestation and was sent to prison for five years.
In all, Chastain has been convicted of five sex offenses against boys between the ages of 8 and 12, according to court documents. ..Source.. by Tony Lystra
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