Held by Pataki, Sex Offenders Are Released

Two sex offenders were released this month from the mental hospitals where they have been involuntarily held since their prison sentences ended.They are the first sex offenders to be released since the state’s highest court ruled that prison officials acted illegally by transferring more than 100 sex offenders to mental hospitals without a court order. Governor Pataki ordered the transfers in 2005.The releases this month were not ordered by a court but came after state psychologists for the Office of Mental Health decided the two did not require civil confinement, an official there told The New York Sun.The decision to release the men moots a court hearing that was expected to take place in the coming weeks regarding their confinement. At that hearing, lawyers for Attorney General Cuomo were expected to argue that the men should remain confined. A spokesman for Mr. Cuomo said the Office of Mental Health, not the attorney general, makes decisions regarding releases.“It is their call,” the spokesman, John Milgrim, said.One of the men released was convicted more than 15 years ago of 2nd degree assault, a lawyer with knowledge of the case said. The lawyer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the conviction was connected to charges that the man had committed a rape in Queens. The convict is not listed in either the online or telephone directory of registered sex offenders in New York. The second man who was released is a registered sex offender; no additional information about him was available.Both were released within the last two weeks — one from the Manhattan Psychiatric Center and the other from the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center — the lawyer said.In the past two years, psychologists for the Office of Mental Health approved transferring about 120 sex offenders, including the two just released, to psychiatric institutions in order to prevent their release from state custody. One state judge, Jacqueline Silbermann, has called into question whether the psychological assessments by state doctors showed the need for civil confinement in each case.Although New York has no law for confining sex offenders at the end of their prison sentences, Mr. Pataki used a civil law not intended for inmates to detain the men in mental hospitals. Last November, the Court of Appeals in Albany ruled that this policy denied sex offenders the due process to which they were entitled. The court did not order their release but did order “immediate” hearings to be held.The official in the Office of Mental Health Services said hearings for about 50 of the offenders are pending.The two sex offenders released this month are not the first to be released since Mr. Pataki initiated his policy. Prior to the Court of Appeals decision, five other sex offenders being held in psychiatric institutions were also released, the mental health official said.“There have been a number of people who have been released, including individuals who never belonged in the system to begin with,” the deputy director of Mental Hygiene Legal Service, which represents the men, Stephen Harkavy, told the Sun. Mr. Pataki’s policy, Mr. Harkavy said, “ignored due process protections that would have prevented erroneous hospitalization.”A spokesman for Mr. Pataki, David Catalfamo, said the release of the men was “of great concern.”

Held by Pataki, Sex Offenders Are Released

Held by Pataki, Sex Offenders Are Released

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