Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 15, 1995 TAG: 9503150062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
After hearing that treatment did not work for a repeat sex offender, a Roanoke judge on Tuesday prescribed what he saw as the only cure for the man's problem - three life terms plus 20 years in prison.
"I am convinced that further treatment at this point is not going to be productive," Judge Richard Pattisall said as he imposed the city's most severe punishment for rape in recent years.
No one disagreed with the judge on one point. Even the defendant said counseling had failed to rid him of his attraction to young children - which he described as a "monster inside of me" that he could not control.
The man is not being named to protect the identity of his 14-year-old daughter, who prosecutor Greg Phillips said was raped or molested at least 100 times by her father over the past several years.
Court records show the man was convicted in Botetourt County of sexually abusing his daughter in 1986. He was sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to enroll in counseling for sex offenders.
But it did little good. In confessing to Roanoke police last year that he went right back to raping his daughter, the man said he was "incurable" and asked for a long prison sentence so he would not repeat the crime yet again.
He got his wish Tuesday, when he was in Roanoke Circuit Court to be sentenced on three counts of rape and two counts of aggravated sexual battery.
"Since 1985, this man has been raping and molesting his own flesh and blood," Phillips said in asking for a life sentence. "He took away her childhood. As normal little girls worry about things like 'How do I look in this dress?' she was worried about going to bed at night and having her father rape her."
While the case undoubtedly was aggravated, it raised equally troubling questions about treatment for sex offenders at a time when state officials are cutting back on counseling programs. At Gov. George Allen's suggestion, the General Assembly this year eliminated funding for treatment of sex offenders in prisons, and some say the importance of prevention is being lost in the political climate of getting tough on crime.
"What is it about [the defendant] that made therapy fail?" Assistant Public Defender Jackie Talevi asked.
Even if treatment programs are eliminated, "the problem will still exist," Talevi said. In asking Pattisall to impose a more lenient sentence, Talevi argued that the system failed to detect early warning signs that her client was a risk.
One of those signs was that the 35-year-old man was sexually abused as a child by a family member. In fact, his very existence is the result of sexual abuse. Talevi said the man's grandfather also is his father.
Adding to the problem, Talevi said, was the fact that her client married a woman who also was sexually abused as a child.
"This was a dysfunctional family from the day they were married," she said. "It should have been red flags and bells and whistles going off every time a [court official] went to that home."
Although the defendant could not say just how the system failed - or how he had failed the system - he said one problem was that he had financial difficulties after having to pay for his therapy sessions.
The director of the Roanoke Area Sex Offenders Program, in which the man was enrolled, said it is all too easy for politicians to cut money from treatment programs for sex offenders.
"Counseling for sex offenders sounds like you're coddling people who hurt children," Isaac Van Patten said. "It's easy to cut them out of the budget without any political liability, and it makes you look like you're being tough on crime."
In reality, he said, studies have shown that treatment can drastically reduce the recidivism rate for sexual offenders.
State officials believe otherwise. "We're talking about a program that was not effective," said Bill Cimino, a spokesman for the state Secretary of Public Safety, in referring to the prison counseling programs cut from next year's budget.
Phillips, an assistant commonwealth's attorney for Roanoke, said full blame should rest not with the system but with the defendant's failure to help himself.
"I think the system went above and beyond the call of duty," Phillips said. "We gave him three chances to get treatment and do with it what he chose."
During Tuesday's intense and often emotional hearing, Phillips and the defendant - who retracted his earlier request for a long sentence and asked for mercy - clashed several times in heated exchanges.
"I know it's your job to try to make me look bad," the defendant said.
"It's easy," Phillips shot back.
"I imagine it is," the man replied.
Later on cross-examination, Phillips questioned the man's statements that he was so upset at having abused his daughter that he twice attempted suicide.
"So you're a failure at committing suicide, but you're a darn good child molester, aren't you?" Phillips asked.
"No, I'm not," the man replied. "There's nothing good about it."
Although acknowledging that he should serve some time in prison, the man asked Pattisall for another chance at treatment and an opportunity to salvage what remains of his life.
"Even though I've failed twice ... I still believe in myself," he testified. "I believe I can get the help that I need, still lead a productive life, and still love normally and be loved. That's my dream. I don't want to be what I am for the rest of my life. I never wanted to be what I am."
But Phillips countered that the man once had been suspended from a treatment program for being argumentative and defensive. And in testimony Tuesday, the defendant had little good to say about the program.
The only way to ensure that someone like the defendant does not repeat his crime, Phillips said, is to keep him locked up for as long as possible.
"Since [the defendant] has been in the Roanoke City Jail, he has not raped or molested any young girls," he said. "And that's the only time in the past 10 years that we can make that statement."
If the man is ever released from prison, Phillips added, "the question is not going to be, when will he molest another little girl? The only question is, whose little girl will it be?"
by CNB