Serial rapist who sparked political furor is cleared for release from Minnesota's sex offender program

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1-11-18 Minnesota:

Judges say he is 'committed to change'; others insist he should remain locked up.

Thomas R. Duvall, a serial rapist who has spent the past 30 years locked up for a series of violent sexual assaults in the 1970s and 1980s, has been approved for conditional release from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP).

In a decision Monday, a panel of state judges approved Duvall’s petition for provisional discharge, ruling that his progress in treatment outweighs his “fearful diagnosis” as a sexual sadist. ..Continued..

Among state's worst, Saratoga sex offender's request denied

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12-11-17 New York:

BALLSTON SPA — A former Saratoga County man has asked a judge to lower his sex offender risk level, even as he remains civilly confined among the state's worst such offenders.

After legal arguments presented in Saratoga County Court, the judge has refused his request.

Andrew Pratt, 54, is a Level 3 sex offender, according to the state sex offender database. Level 3 offenders are believed to be at the highest risk to commit further sex crimes.

He lives in the Central New York Psychiatric Center, near Utica, where many of the state's civilly confined sex offenders are housed. Pratt was the first sex offender from Saratoga County to be civilly confined a decade ago.

At Friday's hearing, prosecutor Michele Schettino told Judge James A. Murphy III that it "defies logic" that Pratt would be categorized anything other than a Level 3 sex offender. State assessments — as recently as October 2016 — indicate he isn't ready for release, even after a decade in civil confinement, she said.

"He remains a high risk to the community and a threat to public safety," Schettino said. "That is precisely why he remains incarcerated." ..Continue..

NY State Grapples with Transgender Sex Offenders

11-21-17 New York:

Here’s a story I had that ran over the weekend regarding the challenge that NYS faces in keeping transgender sex offenders in civil confinement:

Vyvenne Jasmyn Ward, 51, has spent almost two decades in prison on rape convictions.

Near the end of her second prison term — this one for raping a woman in a Cortland alleyway — Ward asked for and eventually started getting hormone treatments to transition from a man to a woman.

“After a legal struggle involving a number of complaints … I finally gained both an evaluation and recommendation for the commencement of hormone therapy on July 3, 2015,” she wrote in a recent letter to the Times Union.

But later that month, after her prison sentence was completed, she was committed to the Central New York Psychiatric Center’s sex offender unit. She is being held there indefinitely after a court proceeding found she has a psychological abnormality that puts her at risk of committing another offense. ..Continued..

Convicted rapist on the lam from Central NY in custody, found near Binghamton

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11-12-17 New York;

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- A dangerous sex offender and convicted rapist is back in custody after fleeing the area earlier this week, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Ronald Cook, 66, was arrested Saturday evening near Binghamton.

Cook became a wanted man after officials said he cut off his ankle bracelet and fled his Utica home Wednesday. He was later spotted in Rome and Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to the department.

Cook, a level three sex offender, was convicted of first-degree rape in 1999 for raping a 24-year-old woman near Binghamton, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. His record indicated he did not know the woman.

He was sentenced to 12 1/2 to 25 years in state prison, where he was deemed a sexually violent sex offender and a predicate sex offender.

After being released in 2012, he was sent to a secretive program called "civil management." According to state records, the system allows the state to keep those deemed out-of-control sex offenders in secure mental hospitals indefinitely. ..Continued..