Document text
Teen sex offender sent to youth lockup Convicted of abusing 7 kids, he has filed treatment program By CHRIS BRISTOL True to his word, a Jackson County judge who threatened to lock up a convicted but defiant 15-year-old molester if he failed sex-offender treatment revoked the boy's probation Wednesday for that very reason. Juvenile Judge Mark Schiveley said he had no choice, because the boy remains in denial and poses a danger to the community. "The hardest part is getting started," he told the boy, who sat throughout the hearing with a dazed and doomed expression on his face. "We've been at an impasse since Day One ... and I have no other options available." At the end of the hearing, the boy's mother rushed to his side and hugged him tearfully while the mother of the victims hugged prosecutor Karen Loomis at the other end of the courtroom. Other members of the boy's family also gathered round him, hugging and crying, before he was led from court with his arms handcuffed behind his back. Within minutes, he was on his way to Grants Pass for an indefinite stay at the Rogue Valley Youth Correctional Facility. Schiveley did not say how long the boy, who turned 15 last week, is to be incarcerated. The court has jurisdiction over him until his 25th birthday. After a bitterly contested eight-day hearing in March, Schiveley convicted the youth of molesting seven boys and girls from a large neighbor family in Ashland. The victims, some of them adopted and born to drug-abusing mothers, have a variety of disabilities. The judge acquitted the boy of eight charges involving another child from the same family and a former neighbor boy. From the beginning, the boy's parents maintained his innocence. In court Wednesday, the boy's father praised his son's "courage and integrity" and accused the victims of lying about him and his wife as well as their son. "We have no choice but to believe our son is telling the truth," he said. "They lied about us, too." A licensed therapist who specializes in treatment of juvenile sex offenders testified the boy was "entrenched in denial from the day he came in" and that she recently terminated him from the program because of his lack of progress. The therapist, Anne Wright, said the boy failed lie-detector tests, gave across-the-board "no" answers to all questions on a sexual-history disclosure form and was unmoved in group therapy sessions in which other youthful offenders candidly discussed their initial denials of guilt. "There really isn't at this point anything I can do with him because I can't move him beyond the first step," Wright said. "He denies everything." Juvenile probation officer Ken Chapman blamed some of the boy's attitude on his parents and recommended the court send him to the Grants Pass prison, which has in-house sex-offender treatment programs. "It's hard enough for offenders to admit what they did," he said, "but it's much harder when they're being supported in denial." After the hearing was over, the parents of the victims expressed relief. They wanted the boy put away from the beginning. "Now our children can get some sleep," the mother said. "This is a good day for my family." Loomis, a Jackson County deputy district attorney who co-prosecuted the case, said the boy could be confined for years if he refuses treatment. "It's really up to him," she said. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA