Teen sex offender to seek release

The Journal Sentinel staff

Waukesha Matthew Huppertz, the attorney for an 18- year-old Waukesha man classified as a sexual predator under a new state law, will ask Waukesha County Circuit Judge Marianne E. Becker to release the man back into the community without supervision, he said Tuesday.

Huppertz acknowledged that doctors believe the man is likely to be a repeat offender. However, he said he believed the man's rights had been violated because he had been detained without treatment for months beyond his mandatory release date last June from the Ethan Allen School for Boys in the Town of Delafield.

District Attorney Paul Bucher said Tuesday he now would recommend that Becker place the man at the Mendota Mental Health Institute, a state institution.

A status hearing on the man's case is scheduled for April 11.

It is the first time in the lengthy, complex case that Huppertz and Bucher have disagreed on where to put the man, the first person in Wisconsin classified as a sexual predator for juvenile offenses.

All parties, including doctors, previously had agreed that the teenager should receive community-based treatment in a residential setting, but state officials have not been able to find such a place for the man.

"I'm not saying it (an institution) is the best place," Bucher said. "But it is a reasonable alternative under the circumstances."

The young man's case gained additional notoriety when Becker ordered in late March that he live in a Waukesha apartment under intense supervision. That plan fell apart after community disapproval so strong that the landlord who runs the apartment building received death threats.

In the meantime, more than 100 apartments and halfway houses have been checked out within the county, but none will take the man, Huppertz said.

The man had previously not contested the state's contention that he is a sexual predator under a new law that allows for indefinite confinement of those believed to be sexually violent. But now, Huppertz said, he will file a motion asking for that finding to be dismissed. Becker Finds Fault

Also Tuesday, Becker spoke out for the first time about the controversy, saying she believed officials with the state Department of Health and Social Services did not do their jobs.

They left her with no viable options except the apartment proposal, the judge said, and have come up with nothing else since that plan fell through.

Becker said she did not feel an institution was viable when she made the apartment ruling because doctors have said an institution was not best for the man. Doctors for both the state and defense said the man was best served through community- based treatment.

The predator law states that confinement must be in the least restrictive manner possible, which Becker said ruled out an institution because of the doctors' recommendations.

That means the only alternatives for the man are community-based treatment or outright release, Becker said. He "has served his sentence," she said.

Becker was not aware that Huppertz would ask for the man's outright release when she gave the interview. She was reflecting only on her decision at the last hearing.

Prosecutor Bucher said Tuesday that circumstances had changed, now allowing for institutionalization.

Bucher said he had asked the doctors to be present at an coming court hearing. He declined to say whether they now believe the man should be institutionalized, but said their testimony "may add a different perspective."

The least restrictive provision in the law applies "if there is an alternative (to an institution)," Bucher said. "We have not been given one."

He also said that an allegation has surfaced that the man refused treatment at the Wisconsin Resource Center, the state institution where he has been held until a plan could be formulated for treatment in the community. The man denies the allegation.

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