Massachusetts Perv Update
Sex deviant’s long rap sheet didn’t faze judge. Boston Herald:
The serial sex fiend busted for allegedly stalking a woman in a Braintree bookstore bathroom left a trail of escalating depravity encompassing nearly a dozen incidents over seven years, including a violent attempted rape.
Judge Richard T. Moses knew twisted sex freak David Flavell’s history of arrests from New Hampshire to Fairhaven when he set free the Level 3 offender in 2006, ruling he posed no danger to the public, according to court filings obtained by the Herald.
In Moses’ written decision, he noted that five medical experts consulted to help decide whether to civilly commit Flavell as a sexually dangerous person agreed that he was not a threat.
“It really is Russian roulette when you make these decisions. And in this case, there happened to be a bullet in the chamber,” said Dr. Marc Whaley, a Cape Cod psychiatrist who has evaluated sex offenders facing civil commitment.
Flavell remained held yesterday on $10,000 cash bail for allegedly ambushing a Holbrook woman in the ladies room of the Borders bookstore in Braintree Jan. 29. He carried a backpack later found to contain a ski mask, gloves and duct tape.
On Wednesday, Flavell will be arraigned in Boston on charges last year that he used pay phones on the Esplanade and at Massachusetts General Hospital to place “several lewd and disturbing” calls to a national center that helps missing and exploited children.
The sexually graphic alleged calls and the Borders incident happened subsequent to Moses’ order.
But a Herald review of his 18-page decision shows the Superior Court judge knew Flavell had been arrested and convicted on a variety of sex offenses between 1996 and 2003, including masturbating in public, threatening children and brutally beating and attempting to rape a woman in Methuen. That 1996 attack took place just hours after he’d been arrested for masturbating in a department store.
Still, Moses ruled that prosecutors failed to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Flavell would reoffend if he was sprung from prison.
…
Moses came under fire earlier this month after it was revealed that Corey Saunders, 26, another registered Level 3 sex offender the judge refused to civilly commit in 2006, was arrested for allegedly raping a 6-year-old boy in a New Bedford library.
In the Flavell case, Moses acknowledged that the pervert was an exhibitionist, but his demented acts did “not rise to the level of conduct which would make him a menace to the health and safety of others.”
Moses declined comment. But Whaley, who agrees with the judge’s decision, said exhibitionists like Flavell generally repeat the same obsessive behavior without necessarily moving up to physical attacks.
“The big problem with all of this is predicting future behavior,” Whaley said of civil commitments.
With great power comes great responsibility. Accountability, apparently lacking. Maybe psychiatrists should be added to the list of enablers who share common venture exposure … sorry, bad choice of words … with judges and the pervs they keep freeing.
Also in the Herald:
Predator’s earlier victim recalls beating, near-rape
Bill to monitor pervs sits idle
T cops nail perv as alleged flasher
Topics: crime, law & order, punishment
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:23 am on Friday, February 22, 2008
One Response to “Massachusetts Perv Update”
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February 23rd, 2008 at 12:10 am
You know what? It is impossible to predict the future WITHOUT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE PAST. When did psychiatrists become God anyway?
The judge should be thrown out, and also be liable for damages suffered by the woman in the bookstore.