Tacoma man waited 12 years for justice on sex predator island ‘He hasn’t been a model citizen, but that’s a long time’

Sex offender Jeffrey Wilson spent 12 years fighting a state effort to have him indefinitely committed to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. Now 62, Wilson claims the state owes him for the years he lost. less Sex offender Jeffrey Wilson spent 12 years fighting a state effort to have him indefinitely committed to the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. Now 62, Wilson claims the state owes him for the years he ... more Photo: Pierce County Sheriff's Office And Seattlepi.com Archive Photo: Pierce County Sheriff's Office And Seattlepi.com Archive Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close Tacoma man waited 12 years for justice on sex predator island 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

In January 2012, Jeffrey Wilson was held out as an example of a man who’d been given too much.

Wilson, by then, had spent a decade at the state-run Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. A small group of sex offenders is housed in the secure facility, which is presented as a treatment center for dangerous, mentally ill rapists and molesters who have already completed their prison sentences.

Legal costs piled up as two trials meant to decide whether Wilson would be held indefinitely at the Special Commitment Center ended with hung juries. Speaking with The Seattle Times about the extraordinary expenses accrued by civil commitment defense attorneys, one assistant attorney general lamented that Wilson and offenders like him were being given “Cadillac”-quality defenses paid for with public money.

In Wilson’s case, though, those tax dollars bought his freedom.

The expert witness the state relied on – a psychologist who’d previously found Wilson prone to sexual assault due to a mental illness – changed his tune in 2013. The psychologist said Wilson no longer qualified for civil commitment on McNeil Island, a claim Wilson’s attorneys had been making since his arrest in 2001.

The state Attorney General’s Office dropped the matter in April 2013, ending a legal battle that began when Wilson wandered into a women’s restroom 12 years before. Now, attorneys for Wilson say he’s owed for the years he spent in the Department of Social and Health Services-run center.

Darryl Parker, a Seattle attorney representing Wilson, said it doesn’t appear to him that Wilson, 62, ever met the basic qualifications set by state law for the Special Commitment Center program.

“He was incarcerated without a finding of wrongdoing,” Parker said.

“He hopes to be compensated for losing 12 years of his life,” the attorney continued. “He hasn’t been a model citizen, but that’s a long time.”

Attorneys for the state have denied the claims raised in Wilson’s lawsuit, which has been filed in federal court. They contend the civil commitment effort was justified, and have previously argued that many of the delays were Wilson’s doing.

Under Washington law, men and women found by a court to be mentally ill sexual predators can be committed indefinitely to the Special Commitment Center. Most spend their lives there, though about 120 have been fully released since the program was launched in 1990.

About 240 offenders are currently housed on McNeil Island, while another 40 or so in the program live off the island. They make up about 1 percent of the sex offenders convicted in Washington courts.

Court records show that Wilson has a long history of sexual assaults dating back to the mid-1970s.

In December 1974, Wilson, then 21, groped and fought with a hitchhiker he’d picked up. He was caught peeping into homes and stealing underwear in 1981, and breaking into a woman’s apartment in 1985. He pleaded guilty to non-sexual crimes in each case.

Wilson appears to have garnered his first conviction for a sex crime in 1977, when he groped a 4-year-old girl he had coaxed into his car. Then 23, Wilson was a door-to-door window salesman.

He attacked again in September 1980, groping a sleeping 12-year-old girl at Sea-Tac International Airport. The girl woke to find Wilson grabbing her groin; Wilson was arrested minutes later, masturbating in an airport bathroom.

Wilson avoided jail time in both those instances. His luck held in 1985, when he received a suspended sentence after grabbing an 11-year-old Tacoma girl as she rode her bicycle through a parking lot.

It wasn’t until 1994 that Wilson received a significant sentence – three years in prison.

On March 22, 1994, the then-40-year-old Wilson wandered into the backyard of a Tacoma home and groped two young girls playing there. Neighbors chased Wilson down and held him until police arrived.

Wilson pleaded guilty to communication with a minor for immoral purposes and was sentenced to prison. He violated his probation several times after his release in May 1997.

By June 2001, Wilson had completed his probation and was living in Tacoma. According to Attorney General’s Office statements, Wilson was arrested that month after a bizarre incident at an Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant.

Police officers investigating a shooting at the restaurant were approached by an 8-year-old girl who said she just had had a strange encounter in the restroom. According to court papers, she said she was using the toilet when a “weird female” slid under the stall door and looked at her.

As it turned out, Wilson had been smoking cocaine in the restroom. He was arrested and briefly jailed.

Writing in court papers, Parker said Wilson was locked in a cocaine-induced psychosis when he ran into the bathroom to hide. Wilson was convinced people were trying to do him harm, and that the women’s room was the last place they would look.

Wilson was never charged with a crime in that incident. Still, state prosecutors characterized that invasion as a sexually motivated offense that would qualify Wilson for a room on McNeil Island.

To indefinitely commit someone to the facility, prosecutors must prove an offender meets a host of qualifications set by state law.

Attorneys for the state have to show that the offender has previously been convicted of a qualifying sex offense – attacks on strangers or casual acquaintances, not family members or romantic partners – and that he or she is likely to do so again because of a mental problem. They must also show that the offender has committed a “recent overt act” of sexual abuse.

The Attorney General’s Office launched civil commitment proceedings against Wilson five weeks after the bathroom incident. He arrived on McNeil Island on July 25, 2001, and remained in custody until April 19, 2013.

State law provides prosecutors 45 days to put their claims to a judge or jury. In practice, though, civil commitment actions drag on for years as both sides collect evidence and expert testimony.

Wilson was tried twice, in 2007 and 2012. Both trials ended with jurors unable to reach a unanimous decision.

The day before a third trial was slated to begin, the state’s expert revised his opinion and argued that Wilson didn’t qualify for civil commitment. The psychologist said he believed Wilson had bettered himself through therapy at the Special Commitment Center; he was no longer confident that Wilson was likely to commit more crimes.

The civil action was dismissed without prejudice and Wilson was ferried off the island.

Parker said the state violated his client’s civil rights by holding him for so long. Attorneys for the state were allowed to delay both trials, Parker said, in violation of the speedy trial and due process guarantees provided by the U.S. Constitution.

“I don’t know how this happened. I’m just astounded,” said Parker, an attorney at Civil Rights Justice Center in Seattle.

“How does somebody wait that many years only to be released because there isn’t enough evidence?” he continued.

Responding to the lawsuit, attorneys for the state claim Wilson entered the women’s room “for sexually deviant purposes” and defend the civil commitment action.

Wilson’s lawsuit is before U.S. District Judge Benjamin H. Settle at the federal court at Tacoma. A trial date has not been set.

Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.