MN - Reform on sex offenders stalls in Minnesota Legislature

Lucinda Jesson

Original Article

04/14/2014

By ABBY SIMONS

Judge has ordered state program overhauled, but doing so means huge political risks for legislators.

The pressure to overhaul a state sex offender treatment program that has been called “clearly broken” by a federal judge is mounting daily, but the Legislature may not act in time to prevent court intervention.

With just weeks to go in the session, Gov. Mark Dayton and legislators are blaming one another for failing to address the problems identified by Judge Donovan Frank. In February, Frank called on state lawmakers to take immediate action or face a court-ordered remedy.

But little has happened since then.

Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson, whose department oversees the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP), said recently that she had hoped for a different outcome this session. “I’m disappointed,” she said. “I’m concerned about the lack of progress toward overall system reform.”

Leaving the program as it is heightens the possibility that the federal courts could, at some point, declare it unconstitutional and order the release of hundreds of the state’s most violent sex offenders. There is precedent for such dramatic intervention: In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that California’s overcrowded prisons amounted to cruel and unusual punishment and ordered the state to reduce its inmate population by 30,000.

Dayton said he asked the Legislature to approve $3 million for professional evaluation of sex offenders — a specific requirement to meet Frank’s order — and said he still expects lawmakers to approve it. “I hope we will get that money,” the governor said. “I don’t know why anyone would object to up-to-date psychological evaluations so we know what we’re dealing with.”
- Why do you need $3 million to evaluate something?  There are a ton of studies out there that have already been done on the subject of sex offenders and civil commitment, if you'd look and stop trying to waste more money and delay the process.

Minnesota’s program holds nearly 700 sex offenders — more per capita than any comparable program in other states. With costs far higher than prison costs, its outlays also have exploded. The state has been criticized in the past for doing too little to prove that those in its care are receiving an actual course of treatment rather than just being held indefinitely after serving their prison sentences.

Critics of the sex offender program say they are not surprised by legislative foot-dragging. Addressing the civil rights of serial rapists and child molesters in an election year, they say, is tantamount to political suicide.
- Not all sex offenders are serial rapists and child molesters!

“If they fix [the MSOP], I can tell you in November they’re the ones that are going to be accused of endangering all the women in Minnesota, and they know it’s gonna be ugly,” said Chuck Samuelson, executive director of the ACLU of Minnesota, which has advocated for the confined in the lawsuit before Frank.

‘Need bipartisan support’

Last spring, the state Senate passed a bill to reform the program by modeling it after programs in New York and Wisconsin, but a companion bill faltered in the House. A similar Senate measure drafted this year also stalled.

Dayton said that he does not expect lawmakers to approve a wholesale makeover this year.

“I’ve always thought realistically it’s going to have to wait until the 2015 legislative session,” he said, “and I hope we have enough courage to deal with it ourselves.”

Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said that Dayton should be providing a specific blueprint for lawmakers and leading the efforts for change.

“I’ve been around here long enough to know that when governors want something, they get it 90 percent of the time,” Hann said. “And this governor has not made this a priority. This is his administration administering the program, and if anyone should know what direction to take, he should be the one.”

House Speaker Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, has said that House Republicans must cooperate with DFLers to forge a sturdy plan for overhauling the existing arrangement.

“For something that’s as important as this, we do need bipartisan support,” Thissen said. “It’s an issue of fundamental public safety.”

Political reality

In addition to public safety, both sides need the other to join them in any proposed solution in order to limit finger-pointing. But House Minority Leader Rep. Kurt Daudt, R-Crown, said there are legitimate differences on approaches to reform that pose a barrier to legislative change.

“My impression is that the Democrats right now have their mind wrapped around some kind of less-restrictive alternative for the current population, and I think this would be incredibly unpopular,” Daudt said. “The public doesn’t support it because the public understands this is a dangerous population and they don’t want these people living next door to them.”

Warren Maas, executive director of Project Pathfinder, which works with sex offenders to prevent recidivism, fully understands the political realities. Maas was there, shortly after Frank’s order, when the Minnesota chapter of the Association for the Treatment of Sex Abusers held an informational session for all 201 legislators, offering assistance in the event of MSOP reform.

Six lawmakers showed up.

“I think for most of them it wasn’t a priority,” Maas said. “But for some of them it was whatever the opposite of priority is. Some of the legislators are pretty adamant that they’re not going to lift a finger. They’re going to let the court system take the hit on the issue of release from MSOP.”

Maas said he wasn’t surprised: The public’s revulsion to sex offenders becomes “low-hanging fruit for negative political messaging.”

Maas said the lawmakers who did show up were engaged, attentive and interested, but their numbers were too few to make a difference.

“It’s a huge disservice not just to offenders but to the community at large,” he said. “We’re wasting a lot of time demonizing a group of people who have the second-lowest recidivism rate among criminals, and nobody wants to hear that.”

MN - Big win for college coach wrongly accused of child porn

Original Article

Whatever happened to being innocent until proven guilty?

04/10/2014

MANKATO - An emotional saga that began with a child pornography accusation 18 months ago ended in final victory Thursday for the ex-football coach of Minnesota State University-Mankato who was fired even though the charges against him were found groundless and dismissed.

A state arbitrator ruled the university wrongfully terminated football coach Todd Hoffner last May for videos found on his school-issued cellphone of his nude and partially clothed young children acting playful after bathing at home.

The arbitrator ordered Hoffner’s reinstatement to his four-year contract along with back pay for lost earnings from his six-figure salary.

Hoffner was suspended in August 2012 when a school technician noticed the videos on his phone while repairing it. He was arrested four days later on child pornography charges, but three months later a judge threw out the charges, ruling the videos did not meet the legal definition of child pornography.

“The videos under consideration here contain nude images of defendant's minor children dancing and acting playful after a bath,” said Judge Krista Jass. “That is all they contain."

But Hoffner never regained his coaching job. Upon dismissal of the charges he was assigned to administrative duties in the athletic department, and then fired six months later. He was hired by Minot, N.D., State University as head football coach in January.

Hoffner insisted all along there was nothing inappropriate in the videos. He said his children – then ages 9, 8 and 5 – were simply acting silly. He said he was an innocent victim of authorities acting overzealously in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal at Penn State University.

Christopher Madel, Hoffner’s arbitration attorney, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune the overseers of the Mankato university should now “clean house” and remove those officials who pursued the pornography charges and then fired Hoffner.

Read the rest of the story

MN - Ex-Salvation Army staffer (Amy Andrea Horsfield) gets 6 months for abusing sex offender

Amy Andrea Horsfield

Original Article

03/19/2014

By David Hanners

The former head of a Salvation Army addiction-recovery program was sentenced Wednesday to six months in the workhouse after she was convicted of having sex with a man in the program.

Amy Andrea Horsfield, 39, of St. Paul said little at sentencing, but Hennepin County District Judge Mark Wernick had plenty to say, telling her she had manipulated her victim, himself a registered sex offender who had sought treatment in the program she oversaw.

Horsfield's actions were "as cruel, mean and as criminal as it gets," the judge said.

Wernick said the woman had preyed upon her victim, who had been "struggling with sex addiction for at least 20 years" and she had "manipulated him by talking to him about her dark side and her rape fantasies."

An assistant Minneapolis city attorney had asked for a 365-day sentence, the maximum for the gross misdemeanor. Wernick, after adjourning the hearing for a few minutes to mull his decision, said he was sentencing her to a year, but was staying 185 days of that for two years.

She'll get credit for the 28 days she's spent in jail since a jury found her guilty of the crime Feb. 20 after a six-day trial.

He placed conditions on the married mother of one. Among them: She has to get mental-health and sex-offender counseling, she can't have contact with her victim or any "vulnerable" adult and she can't work as a chemical-dependency counselor.

She also must register as a predatory sex offender.

Horsfield had been the program director/coordinator of the Beacon substance abuse recovery program at the Salvation Army's Harbor Light Center, just west of downtown Minneapolis.

Given the chance to speak before sentencing, Horsfield -- wearing a bright orange jail anti-bacterial garment, her hair wadded in a bun -- only denied a prosecutor's claim that she had sent a letter to another former Beacon client with whom the state says she had a relationship.

Wernick asked her if she had anything else to say. No, she said.

Before the hearing, defense attorney Robert Paule had given Wernick 17 letters from people asking for leniency. Among the correspondents: Horsfield's husband, her 12-year-old son ("She only wants to help people and provide comfort for them," the youth wrote), former co-workers and classmates at St. Catherine University and even former Beacon clients who said Horsfield had given them hope in their darkest hours.

At the time the crime was occurring, her husband also worked at the Harbor Light Center.

The Minneapolis city attorney's office charged her last May with criminal sexual abuse, claiming that in her capacity as a caregiver, she had preyed upon a "vulnerable" adult.

Police reports said she and a client in the program, identified in court documents by his initials, A.M.B., engaged in a consensual sexual relationship from November 2010 until April 2011.

Evidence indicated they'd had sex in several locations, including her vehicle, Beacon's housing area and at the Midway Motel in St. Paul.

Investigators found that Horsfield had talked to the man about maintaining a sexual relationship and that she "confided to A.M.B. that she had a 'rape fantasy' and said she wanted to fulfill that fantasy with A.M.B.," Assistant City Attorney Lisa Godon wrote in one court document.

The relationship continued after the man left the Beacon program.

Horsfield didn't testify at her trial last month, and Paule offered no witnesses, arguing to the jury that prosecutors failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Jurors disagreed.

In court Wednesday, Godon asked Wernick to sentence the woman to the maximum time behind bars and to ignore a probation officer's presentence report that recommended a couple of months.

"The defendant continues to minimize and deny what happened in this case," she told the judge. "The defendant continues to maintain that nothing happened."

She said Horsfield had been in therapy for 10 years, and it appeared she'd gained little from it.

"She has failed to accept responsibility for her actions," Godon said. She also said there was evidence Horsfield had had three similar inappropriate relationships while at the Salvation Army.

Paule told the judge that acceptance of responsibility "is a term of art in the legal community" and that, all things considered, his client "has been following the court's orders" and she could be released without endangering the community.

At one point, Wernick seemed incredulous at the defense argument, jumping in to say that Horsfield had told the probation officer doing the pre-sentencing report "not only did I not have sex, but there were no sexual communications."

Among the evidence prosecutors gathered were sexually explicit text messages between Horsfield and the man. At one point, she mailed him a pair of panties.

A.M.B., now 43, is serving a 366-day sentence at the prison in Stillwater for failing to register as a predatory sex offender. In January, he filed a civil suit against the Salvation Army and Horsfield, claiming negligence, maltreatment, sexual exploitation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other things.

The court docket doesn't indicate that Horsfield has filed an answer, but the Salvation Army did, denying wrongdoing.

The Salvation Army said the man "comes before this court with unclean hands because plaintiff's own conduct and actions have caused any alleged damages or loss of personal freedom."

MN - Minnesota committee backs bill to expand sex offender registration

Jay McNamar

Original Article

03/19/2014

ST. PAUL - A House committee unanimously supported a bill with its roots in western Minnesota that would require any sex offender who is required to register elsewhere to register when he moves to the state.

The bill by Rep. Jay McNamar, D-Elbow Lake, would expand Minnesota law to require registration by any sex offender who must register under federal or tribal law or by another state's law, even if the person did not commit a crime that would have required him to register in Minnesota.

John Kingrey of the Minnesota County Attorneys' Association said the bill stems from a Traverse County case. A North Dakotan convicted of indecent exposure, who was required to register in his home state, moved to the county and authorities did not have the power to make him register in Minnesota.

MN - Any fix for Minnesota Sex Offender Program looks dead for session

Original Article

03/13/2014

By Briana Bierschbach

Despite stern warnings from a federal judge to fix potential constitutional problems with the state’s sex offender treatment program, talks to revamp the program in the Minnesota Legislature have buckled — again — under political pressure.

Democrats, who control the Legislature, say a proposal to deal with issues raised by locking up about 700 offenders with little hope of release in the Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) is unlikely to move forward during the short legislative session.

The two political parties in the House have so far failed to strike a deal that would garner votes from both sides.

Republicans favor a plan that would create a less restrictive living facility for low-functioning sex offenders on the grounds of the MSOP facilities in St. Peter and Moose Lake. They’re referring to offenders who have mental or physical limitations that keep them from being able to successfully complete the program, such as the elderly.

“They aren’t about to hop a barbed-wire fence, but they could still pose a danger if they came in contact with potential victims,” said Rep. Nick Zerwas, R-Elk River, who has been involved in MSOP negotiations.

The proposal would get some people out of their indefinite confinement within the program without moving offenders into a new community, Republicans say.

But lead Democrats in the House say that offer doesn’t go far enough to fix the long-term problems and constitutional questions with the program. They prefer to adopt most of the final recommendations of the Sex Offender Civil Commitment Advisory Task Force.

In December, the task force recommended creating a panel of experts to advise county attorneys in recommending people for civil commitment. It also called for an automatic biennial review of people enrolled in the program and an independent judicial hearing process that first determines if a person is sexually dangerous. The task force also wants a separate hearing to determine where an offender should be treated.

Those changes, experts say, would create more options for offenders.

“That’s all fine with me, but you don’t need a bill for that,” DFL Rep. Tina Liebling, chair of the Health and Human Services Policy Committee, said of the Republican proposal. “That’s a bonding project that the department can propose and nobody would be opposed to that, but that doesn’t solve the problem we are dealing with.”

Talks have stalled with time running out in the short session. Without Republican votes on the table, Democrats haven’t moved forward with a proposal, fearing the issue will be used against them on the campaign trail this fall.
- You see, it's not about fixing a broken system, it's about their own reputation and career!  That is why this country is falling apart!

“This is a problem that’s created bipartisanly over a number of years, and it has to be solved bipartisanly,” Liebling said. “It’s such an explosive political issue, such a difficult one to deal with, that unless there’s buy-in from all sides here, nobody is going to be willing to move forward because it’s a very potent election issue.”

Pressure mounting

Minnesota currently houses more sex offenders per capita than any other state with a similar program in place. Only one person has been successfully released from the program in its nearly 20-year history. The MSOP population exploded after the 2003 rape and murder of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin by a released offender.

Experts have warned that it’s unconstitutional to lock people up in a treatment center with little hope for release after they’ve served out their prison terms. But politicians and state officials have been reluctant to release offenders or make changes to the program, fearing political backlash for releasing an offender into a community.
- So do politicians run the program?  If not, then it's not their function to determine who can and cannot be released.

Late last year, Republicans criticized Gov. Mark Dayton over the proposed transfer of six men from the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter to a less restrictive facility in Cambridge. In response, Dayton used his bully pulpit to throw the issue back into the legislative arena, publicly opposing those transfers and calling on lawmakers to make an MSOP fix a priority during the 2014 session.
- Again, it's about saving yourself and blaming others, not about Constitutional rights and fairness!

Pressure is mounting to tackle the issue. In late February, U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank issued a strongly worded ruling that called on legislators to do something to fix serious constitutional questions with the program immediately or face court action.

“The Court, like others, will not hesitate to take strong remedial action,” Frank wrote. “The program’s systemic problems will only worsen as hundreds of additional detainees are driven into MSOP over the next few years.”

Frank and a team are currently reviewing case by case hundreds of offenders committed in MSOP as part of a class-action lawsuit (Liebling said she has introduced a bill this session that will pay the $3.5 million it will cost to complete that review process).
- If these people already get paid for doing their job, then why do you need an additional $3.5 million to do their job?

No plan in place

Without action from the Legislature, Frank could toss out the whole program out on constitutional grounds. He also could single out individual cases where continued commitment of the offender doesn’t meet constitutional muster. Without a legislative plan in place, it’s unclear where offenders would go.

“I’m not surprised it remains a politically charged issue, but I am surprised that the Legislature would be willing to risk a federal court takeover of this program,” said Eric Janus, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law and a member of the Sex Offender Civil Commitment Advisory Task Force. “Why would anyone want to delay that and risk a federal court order that could have very substantial consequences?”
- Because they don't want to accept the responsibility of it and want someone else to get the blame for it, that's why!

It’s not unprecedented for the courts to order states to release prisoners. In 2009, a three-judge special panel ruled that widespread overcrowding in California prisons was unconstitutional and constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.” The U.S. Supreme Court upheld that ruling, and a federal judge ordered the state to release thousands of low-level offenders before their sentences expired.

“We do not have a publicly safe plan in place to deal with somebody that the court determines we are not longer able to treat under our civil-commitment laws. That is a failure on the part of the Legislature,” said Sen. Kathy Sheran, DFL-Mankato, who successfully passed a bill adopting many of the task force recommendations in the Senate last year.
- If you are no longer able to treat them, then let them go.  If they re-offend, then arrest them just like you would anybody else who commits a crime.  Stop playing with people's lives!

“If the public isn’t scared to death about that, I don’t know what’s going to scare them,” Sheran added. “It scares the living daylight out of me.”
- Yeah, they need the public to be scared of something so they can continue to eradicate our rights!

Politics complicates debate

This session, Sheran has introduced another bill to fill out some of the final recommendations from the task force, but she’s skeptical anything will move to the governor’s desk this session.

The proposal passed off the Senate floor last year with support from Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader David Hann, but the bill was never brought to the House floor because Republicans and Democrats again couldn’t reach an agreement.

After Dayton’s call for legislative action, Zerwas and Liebling were part of high-level meetings with officials from the Department of Human Services and the Department of Corrections to find a solution before session started, but talks again broke down in the House.

“I was told that that [our proposal] was a non-starter,” Zerwas said. “They want a bifurcated trial system…. we could get there, probably, but we are not going to get there in a two-month session.”

“I’m somewhat frustrated. I didn’t think we could solve the whole MSOP problem in the shortened session, but I really felt like in the progress we were making, we were going to take a bite out of it,” he continued. “I don’t think that’s in the cards now.”
- We don't see what the whole problem is.  If you hire experts to treat ex-offenders and then they later determine they are not a risk, then release them.  Let the people you hired do their jobs!  If nobody wants to release anybody for fear of repercussions, then you need to eradicate civil commitment!

Liebling said she got no indication from Republicans that they would be willing to accept a two-part judicial review process, a key part of the task force recommendations.

“Bottom line is, there hasn’t been any real willingness from the minority in the House to move forward with this, and that’s why nothing has happened,” Liebling said.

GOP Sen. Warren Limmer, who has been working to resolve issues with MSOP for the last four years, says he fears the House will put off taking action until the court does, pushing legislators into a likely special session scenario to fix the problem.

“Then all the eyes of Minnesota will be focused on us and this issue and our failure to act when we should have,” Limmer said. “When you have a federal court threatening action, it behooves us to do something ourselves.”
- It should never have came to this in the first place!

MN - Inside The Razor Wire, Part 1: Tour Of MN Sex Offender Program

Moose Lake

Original Article

03/03/2014

By Susie Jones

The Minnesota Sex Offender Program is “clearly broken” and in need of repair. That’s according to a federal judge who ruled this month on a class action lawsuit, brought against the state, by clients of the program.

WCCO’s Susie Jones begins a series of reports on the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, taking us “Inside the Razor Wire.” We begin with an exclusive tour of the Moose Lake facility.

MOOSE LAKE (WCCO) – Inside the Minnesota Sex Offender Program at Moose Lake, men return to the hallways after being locked inside their rooms to be counted.

It is bright and clean, and doesn't look like you might think it would.

“I think they think of something more dark and dingy, something more punitive,” Kevin Moser, who manages the facility, said. “This is a therapeutic community. It is a therapeutic expectation of staff, and clients, who support our clients in positive change.”


About 500 clients live in locked rooms with a bed, a dresser, a desk and their own belongings. The average age is 47 and most are white. They have all served time in prison for sexual offenses and have been civilly committed to the program.

While there, they can learn a trade and get treatment.

“Someone could be struggling with anxiety and pedophilia,” Clinical Director Jannine Hebert said.

Hebert is in charge of the therapy the client’s receive. She says the men take part in group sessions three times a week, and their behavior is monitored at all times — with staff keeping a close eye on how they interact with their peers.

“Because what we know about people with pedophilic interest is that they are scared of adults and gravitate toward children. So, part of his treatment plan may be this weekend, ‘I’m going to tell you to go play basketball and I’m going to let staff know if you are isolating in the corner,’” she said.

Herbert believes re integration into society is possible and should be attempted.

“I want clients to be successful in treatment, so they don’t hurt anyone else going forward,” she said.


On Tuesday, we meet Michael, a sex offender at Moose Lake who molested a 10-year-old girl. He says the system is broken.

MN - Talking Points: Legality Of MN’s Sex Offender Program

Original Article

02/23/2014

By Esme Murphy

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - A ruling late last week says the legislature needs to act to fix a draconian system that Minnesota uses to lock up more than 700 sexually dangerous offenders.

The ruling stopped just short of calling the program unconstitutional, but it appears to pave the way for some of these offenders to be released.

It’s the kind of charged issued that no elected official wants to deal with — especially in an election year.

More than 700 sexually dangerous offenders who have completed their prison sentences are locked up at state facilities in Moose Lake and St Peter.

Now, a federal judge, Donavan Frank, has ruled that program is broken and the legislature needs to change it — or else the courts will act.

The message is pretty clear. If the legislature doesn’t take action leading to some of the individuals being released, the court may take action on its own.

Gov. Mark Dayton’s efforts to pave the way for one or two releases last year was met with cries of protest and the release of the offenders was put on hold.

Dan Gustafson, who represents the 700-plus offenders in a class action lawsuit, appeared on WCCO Sunday Morning.

“There is no question that people who have been committed under this program in the state of Minnesota have committed some horrific acts in the past. That really can’t be disputed. The files are what they are, but this is not a situation in this country under our constitution in which we allow preventative detention,” Gustafson said. “If the treatment they have been promised is just a guise for ‘we are going to lock you up and never let you go,’ that is not allowed under our constitution.”

With Dayton and the entire Minnesota House up for reelection, the issue on what to do with the sexual offender program will certainly be a subject of fierce debate during the upcoming legislative session as well as a likely key election issue this fall.

MN - Deal may be near in case of ex-cop (Bradley Schnickel) accused of soliciting girls

Bradley Schnickel

Original Article

02/07/2014

By Sarah Horner

A settlement may be coming in the case against a former Minneapolis police officer accused of soliciting young girls on the Internet for sex.

After meeting Friday in Anoka County District Court, both Bradley Schnickel's defense attorney and the prosecution said the two sides are close to reaching a resolution.

They will meet in a settlement hearing Monday, the same day the trial against the 33-year-old father of two was set to begin.

"We are working it out... We're getting close," said Fred Bruno, Schnickel's attorney. "This will most likely be resolved Monday."

Schnickel faces more than 21 criminal counts alleging criminal sexual misconduct, lewd exhibition, furnishing alcohol to a minor and other accusations.

Using various aliases, Schnickel is accused of logging on to Facebook and other social networking sites and engaging in sexually charged conversations with more than a dozen young girls. In some cases, he exchanged naked pictures with the minors. In a couple instances, he allegedly met them in person and had sex.

The youngest alleged victim was 11. Several others were 12 to 14.

None of the conduct took place while Schnickel was working as a cop.

The Minneapolis patrol officer since 2008 received a medal of commendation for his work in 2011. He was placed on "home assignment" last January after the allegations surfaced.

He was fired the following month.

Monday's hearing comes just over three months since he pleaded guilty in Hennepin County Court to two counts of Internet solicitation of children for similar crimes.

Schnickel was sentenced to a year at the Hennepin County Adult Corrections Facility in Plymouth and mandated to undergo therapy.

He is already enrolled in a sex offender treatment program at Alpha Human Services in Minneapolis.

Schnickel's hearing Monday will take place at 2 p.m.