The state attorney general’s office pressed a judge to commit a serial sex offender to an institution, but instead the judge, Willam Wetzel, set him free, and two weeks later, the man — who had reportedly been arrested 52 times, 29 of them for sexual abuse — was caught and charged with rubbing up against a female college student on the Lexington Avenue subway line.

Under state law passed last year, the man arrested this week could have been confined to an institution instead of being released at the end of his prison sentence two weeks ago. The state attorney general’s office pushed the judge, Supreme Court Justice William Wetzel, a Pataki appointee, to keep him off the streets. Instead, the judge released the man, Freddie Johnson, under a second option provided for in the 2007 law for sex offenders with “mental abnormalities”: “strict and intensive supervision and treatment.”

As a part of the regimen of supervision, the Parole Division assigned him an officer with a low caseload, only 11 other cases, strapped on an ankle bracelet, and made sure to notify the New York City Police Department that he was out again. Then he was released. He checked into Bellevue Men’s Shelter. It’s unclear what sort of treatment he was assigned, if any.

Fifteen days later, Freddie Johnson, 49, was picked up after police caught him on Wednesday in what they say was an act similar to those he had committed numerous times before over the past two decades: inappropriately rubbing himself against a woman on the subway. It was just as the morning rush hour was beginning on the 6 Train near the 59th Street station. According to a report yesterday in the Daily News, which disclosed his arrest record, his victim was a college student.

Johnson had served a maximum sentence for his conviction as a persistent sexual abuser when he was released at the end of March. It was the second time he had served time for persistent sexual abuse, according to court documents. Previously, he had also pleaded guilty for harassment, third degree assault, criminal trespassing, and reckless endangerment. Court records reviewed by The New York Sun disclosed at least 18 arrests and dozens of criminal charges.

Johnson wasn’t the first offender to fall through the cracks under the new “strict and intensive” alternative to commitment.

The New York State Office of Mental Health reported on their Web site that out of 10 sex offenders who had been released under strict and intensive supervision and treatment as of December 31, 2007, four broke their parole requirements. Three of them were technical violations, but one was due to the re-arrest of the offender after he molested someone in the subway.

The civil confinement of sex offenders was a policy initiative of Governor Pataki, who at the end of his term began unilaterally committing sex offenders to institutions as they were about to be released from prison. The Court of Appeals later decided the commitments were illegal, but Governor Spitzer signed a new law in March last year giving judges discretion over whether to commit some offenders or release them under the strict supervision requirements.

The executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, a victim’s rights organization, Laura Ahearn, said her organization had been opposed to the strict and intensive supervision and treatment provision from the beginning. She noted that the requirements to enter the strict and intensive supervision and treatment program were that the offender have a mental abnormality and be at high risk of offending again.

“When somebody fits within that criteria, they should stay in an institution. They should not be released on any kind of supervision,” she said. “They should be confined in a treatment center until they’ll determined not to be a risk to the community anymore.”

She said Johnson’s re-arrest demonstrates the need to eliminate strict and intensive supervision and treatment.

Other activists have criticized civil confinement as expensive and raised constitutional challenges to it, however.