Despite “overwhelming” evidence that a man who spent 16 years in prison for molesting young boys had shown “serious difficulty” in controlling his pedophilia, a state judge has ruled that he lacks the authority to overturn the verdict of a jury that refused to institutionalize the offender upon his release from prison.
Acting Justice Michael A. Gross in the Bronx (See Profile), in declining a motion by the Attorney General’s Office to set aside the verdict, determined that the jury’s verdict “was not supported by the evidence.” But he said his hands were tied because the 2007 law establishing New York’s civil confinement program for dangerous sex offenders “expressly” mandates the release of a prisoner who has completed his prison sentence once a jury determines that he has no “mental abnormality” making it likely he would commit additional sex offenses.
