Bid to lock up sex offender dropped

The Washington Attorney General’s Office has rejected a proposal to ask a court to lock up an 18-year-old Spokane man indefinitely as a sexually violent predator.

But Spokane police continue to investigate Jacob Mathew Rogers in connection with two suspected child rapes last summer in downtown Spokane.

Rogers is a level 3 registered sex offender, the type considered most likely to commit new crimes. He has been convicted of raping boys and girls since he was 12.

Last month, the state Department of Social and Health Services urged the Attorney General’s Office to ask a court to send Rogers to the DSHS’ Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island for sexually violent predators. People who are declared sexual predators remain under state control until they can convince a judge they are no longer dangerous, which rarely happens.

The civil court procedure for declaring someone a violent sex predator is similar to the one used to force people into state mental hospitals. The predator-commitment law requires the state to prove several things, including a conviction, a serious mental defect and, if the candidate is not already incarcerated for sexual violence, a “recent overt act.”

Assistant Attorney General Krista Bush and her supervisor, Brian Moran, said last week they decided not to seek civil commitment of Rogers “at this time” because of the “lack of a provable recent overt act.” If they had filed a commitment action against Rogers, Bush and Moran would have had to prove the allegations that Spokane police are still investigating.

“In making our decision, we do not mean to suggest that Mr. Rogers may not be dangerous,” Bush and Moran said in a letter to Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker.

The Attorney General’s Office handles sex-predator commitments for Tucker.

Bush and Moran said they reviewed “several thousand pages” of documents supplied by the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration and local law enforcement agencies.

Court documents show Rogers pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree child rape in Pierce County Juvenile Court for raping a boy in late 1999 and early 2000 – when the victim was 9 and Rogers was 12. Rogers had been charged with four counts, representing each of the ways he assaulted the victim. Charging documents say Rogers admitted he had sex with the victim “once or twice a week” for almost 10 months.

Authorities also said in charging documents that Rogers frequently had sex with the victim’s older brother. Rogers wasn’t charged with raping the older brother because the brother was less than two years younger than Rogers. State law doesn’t criminalize sex between children who are close to the same age.

Rogers got an indeterminate 30- to 72-week sentence in a state juvenile rehabilitation center, but it was suspended on condition that he successfully complete sex-offender treatment and two years of probation after moving to Spokane. He failed both.

Rogers’ original sentence was restored in July 2001, two days before his 14th birthday. A court commissioner found Rogers made no progress in treatment and that he violated probation by having unsupervised contact with a child more than two years his junior, and by visiting “numerous” pornographic sites on the Internet, including some featuring bestiality.

He was almost 16 in June 2003 when he had sex with a 12-year-old girl in a vacant warehouse across Wedgewood Avenue from Lowe’s Home Improvement on North Division. The girl consented, but wasn’t old enough to do so legally.

Rogers pleaded guilty to second-degree child rape and was sent to a juvenile rehabilitation center for two years, and was newly released when the current rape allegations surfaced.

He is suspected of forcibly raping a 16-year-old girl and having sex with a 14-year-old girl who wasn’t old enough to give valid consent. Both incidents are alleged to have occurred last year near downtown Spokane.

The Attorney General’s Office would have had to prove one of the allegations as a “recent overt act” if it had sought civil commitment of Rogers as a sex predator.

The difficulty of proving “recent overt acts” without first obtaining a criminal conviction was demonstrated last November when a Spokane County jury refused to commit a 54-year-old man with a long history of sexual violence. The jury determined that James M. White met all the criteria of a sexually violent predator except for a “recent overt act.”

Bush tried unsuccessfully to convince the jury that a girl- friend’s allegations of rape constituted the recent act necessary to send White to the McNeil Island center.

A woman who lived with White for 5 1/2 months testified that he struck her and forced her to have sex against her will on one occasion. But she failed to report the incident promptly and continued to live with White.

White hadn’t been formally charged with raping the woman, and the jury in his civil commitment trial was unable to agree unanimously that a recent overt act occurred. Standards ordinarily are lower in civil cases, but the sexually violent-predator commitment law requires criminal standards – proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

If Rogers is convicted of another sex crime, authorities wouldn’t have to prove a “recent overt act” to have him declared a sexually violent predator, subject to lifelong incarceration or control. But a serious mental or personality disorder would still have to be proved.

On the other hand, a new sex conviction might make civil commitment unnecessary. Sentences for serious sex crimes now carry indeterminate sentences that could keep Rogers in prison as long as a parole board believes he is dangerous.