Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Predator to be held for rest of life

A Spokane County Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that 35-year-old Charles Sean Tillman is a sexually violent predator who must be confined or controlled for the rest of his life.

The civil commitment order is similar to those that confine people in mental hospitals because they are dangerous to themselves or others. In effect, Tillman is to be locked up for crimes he may commit in the future.

Judge Jerome Leveque’s ruling required him to find that Tillman – a prolific exhibitionist, by his own admission – has a mental problem that makes it difficult for him to control sexually violent urges.

When the Attorney General’s Office filed a petition to commit Tillman in August 2001, Leveque also had to find that Tillman had committed a recent act of sexual violence and had been convicted of a crime of sexual violence.

No one disputed that Tillman’s guilty plea to indecent liberties with forcible compulsion was for a crime of sexual violence. He broke into the home of a 78-year-old Spokane woman, now deceased, in September 1992 and sexually assaulted her after ripping off her nightgown.Afterward, the victim told authorities, Tillman demanded money.

Tillman testified last October in a trial that ended in a hung jury that he was sexually aroused by the woman’s fear.

Proving the other elements necessary to keep Tillman under state control for life was more difficult, Leveque said. He noted that a jury that heard testimony last October was unable to reach a verdict.

Tillman and Assistant Attorneys General Malcolm Ross and Krista Bush agreed to allow Leveque to decide this issue on the basis of the trial record. Leveque read the transcript and trial documents and heard arguments for several weeks before announcing his verdict Tuesday.Defense attorney Tim Trageser said he thought Ross and Bush, in another trial, would eliminate several weaknesses in the case they presented in October. He noted that eight of 12 jurors found insufficient evidence and that Leveque was required to work with the same evidence.

Leveque saw the evidence differently, however.

He said he was unimpressed with a study the state’s mental health expert cited as evidence that Tillman is likely to reoffend, but he found the rest of the psychologist’s testimony persuasive.

He thought the defense’s psychologist failed to recognize that Washington law says burglaries can be sexually violent offenses.

Tillman has a long history of burglaries that he admitted were motivated by his urge to expose himself to elderly women.

He was convicted of residential burglary and malicious mischief in 1991 for breaking a 69-year-old woman’s window when she refused to let him in her house. Tillman had been out of jail less than six months when he went on a 1992 spree that included the attack on the 78-year-old Spokane woman. He pleaded guilty to attempted residential burglary in 1992 at the homes of another 78-year-old woman and a 70-year-old woman.

About the same time, Tillman opened another elderly woman’s screen door and grabbed her, for which he pleaded guilty to residential burglary.

Also in 1992, Tillman grabbed an 80-year-old Spokane woman’s hands when she tried to force him to leave her home, which he entered under false pretenses. He pleaded guilty to residential burglary in that incident.

After his release from prison, Tillman was investigated in Tacoma for a couple of flashing incidents and allegations that he stalked two 11-year-old girls.

He still faces a gross misdemeanor charge in Lakewood, Wash., for allegedly exposing himself to a 75-year-old woman and making a threatening gesture while he stood in her driveway in July 2001.

Leveque found the Lakewood case constituted the recent act of sexual violence necessary to commit Tillman as a sexual predator. A conviction wasn’t required.

Leveque noted that the Lakewood woman was “emphatic” that Tillman threatened her with a claw-like gesture, while Tillman testified only that he couldn’t remember making such a gesture.

Trageser said Leveque’s ruling will be appealed. If the appeal is unsuccessful, Trageser said, Tillman also may ask a court to approve a treatment plan that frees him from incarceration in the state’s McNeill Island prison for sex offenders.