Release Pact A Way To Monitor Rapists

By GRETCHEN PARKER The Tampa Tribune

Published: Oct 10, 2007

TAMPA - On its face, it sounds absurd. The state attorney's office signed a contract with a convicted rapist.

Why, some asked this week, did the Hyde Park rapist of the1980s get to negotiate a contract with prosecutors that would trigger his release? What kind of system is this?

The answer is complicated, politically sensitive and not easily laid out to a public that is struggling to understand how Bobby Joe Helms would be allowed to live free in a Pinellas County mobile home park. His attorney is looking for a home for Helms near Orlando or Fort Lauderdale after media attention on his case cut short his efforts to live in Pinellas.

One thing seems clear: The contract isn't a way for Helms to shortcut his sentence. In fact, it's a way for the criminal justice system to keep tabs on him longer - even though he was released from prison in 1999 after serving a 13-year prison sentence.

"If we hadn't drawn up the contract on Bobby Joe Helms, the alternative would have been to let him out of the civil commitment center with absolutely no restrictions," said Assistant State Attorney Rita Peters, chief of the office's sex offender division.

The criminal prosecution of Helms, who admitted to 14 rapes, is long over. "We cannot go back and relitigate the criminal case. We cannot go back and change his sentence," Peters said.

Helms, now 49, was released from prison in 1999, but prosecutors used civil proceedings under the Jimmy Ryce Act to send him to forced treatment at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia. For the act to be triggered, the Department of Children & Families has to determine that the soon-to-be-released inmate is likely to commit another sex crime. A civil jury then has to agree to send him to the commitment center.

2nd Attempt At Freedom

The way for sex offenders, such as Helms, to get out of the commitment center is to get a civil court to decide that his condition has changed - that he's ready to re-enter society.

At that point, prosecutors can step in again. Rather than allowing that often-unconditional kind of release, they offer up contracts stipulating conditions.

That's what Helms has signed. Twice. In 2002, he signed a contract with Hillsborough County agreeing to several conditions, including a requirement he undergo treatment on an outpatient basis. A few months later, he failed a lie detector test and was forced back into the treatment center.

Except for those few months, Helms has been at the civil commitment center for the past eight years.

This time, two psychiatrists deemed that he is not a danger, and Peters said she had no way to keep him committed. She negotiated a contract that requires him to abide by a curfew, submit to lie detector tests and get more sex offender treatment.

Controversy Over Commitment

Civil commitment, and the contracts that negotiate a patient's release, are controversial. Detractors say both tactics are unconstitutional because they undermine the rights of people who have served the time for their crimes.

"I have no respect for the whole process," said Don Sweeney, a mental health counselor in Pinellas who has treated inmates after their time at the civil commitment center. "It's very draconian."

Florida is one of 19 states with laws that allow them to commit or restrict sex offenders after their release from prison, according to a report by The New York Times. It's a mechanism that is growing nationwide, the paper found.

As for the contracts that stipulate terms of their release, Helms is one of 10 Hillsborough County sex offenders who has entered into one since they started being used in 2000, Peters said.

Of those 10, one was sent back to prison. Another failed to go to treatment and was recommitted. Two completed contracts and are free. Others are living under the terms of their contracts, Peters said.

Peters said many counties in Florida use the contracts, although it wasn't clear how many that might be. Pinellas County doesn't use them.

News Channel 8 reporter Samara Sodos contributed to this report. Reporter Gretchen Parker can be reached at (813) 259-7562 or gparker@tampatrib.com.