Attorney General John Suthers said Saturday he is confident judges across Colorado would act swiftly to order sexually violent-predator evaluations of 337 sex offenders who slipped through the cracks.
“It’s important to get these probationers evaluated because they are already in the community,” Suthers said. “I would think that judges would unilaterally file motions to get them evaluated.”
Since Colorado’s Sexually Violent Predator law went into effect in 1999, the Colorado Division of Probation Services has either failed to do evaluations or has misplaced the records of completed tests for more than 1,200 sex offenders.
The Denver Post reported gaps in sexually violent predator testing more than four months ago. But division officials repeatedly cited problems, including thin staffing, that led to delays in collecting the names of untested sex offenders, despite pressure from lawmakers.
The Department of Corrections, by comparison, has already evaluated at least 86 of 900 sex offenders, said corrections spokeswoman Patti Micciche. At least five have been labeled as sexually violent predators.
Micciche said no sex offender in prison will be released without being evaluated.
State law requires probation and corrections officials to do the evaluations on all sex offenders convicted of most sex offenses – before sentencing and again before they appear before the Colorado Parole Board. If labeled a sexually violent predator, a sex offender’s mug shot is placed on a Colorado Bureau of Investigation database and police notify the offender’s neighbors about his criminal background and hold community meetings.
Jeanne Smith, Suthers’ deputy attorney general, handed out lists of the sex offenders from each judicial district to prosecutors at a meeting of district attorneys Friday.
Suthers asked the prosecutors to file motions requesting that all of the sex offenders be evaluated.
A Denver Post story in May reported that Colorado had labeled only two men not in prison as sexually violent predators, even though more than 1,300 met the initial criteria to be labeled predators. The report said DOC had not done any evaluations, and probation officials didn’t know how many they had done.
“This is a Keystone Kops routine,” House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said Saturday. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so dangerous.”
Several lawmakers are proposing new bills to fix the gaps in the sexually violent predator law. Romanoff has since convened hearings at the state Capitol and legislators ordered probation and DOC officials to determine how many offenders had not been evaluated. Gov. Bill Owens formed a task force in June, and the panel requested the same research.
Probation division officials have for months promised but have not produced the names of sex offenders who had not been evaluated. They finally did Friday.
Probation director Thomas Quinn said he initially had all probation officers review their own files to determine how many had not been done. But he later said the officers were too busy managing large caseloads and he hired two people to review each file.
Among the sex offenders not evaluated was Bret Ibsen, a twice-convicted Westminster youth football coach who admitted molesting 10 boys since 1988.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-820-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
