Sex offenders at state center getting porn

The state's treatment center on McNeil Island for its most predatory sex offenders is surrounded by concertina wire and security cameras. Mail and visitors are searched, and the staff can't even bring iPods to work.

But that hasn't kept some men held at the Special Commitment Center (SCC) from getting their hands on thousands of images of child pornography.

In the past two years, at least four of the 267 residents have been charged with possessing illegal pornography, and officials there are investigating several others. The latest case emerged just before Christmas, when the FBI arrested a 49-year-old child molester who had computer CDs full of graphic child pornography stashed in his room.

Managers of the SCC say they don't know how the material is getting in. The most recent arrest has prompted at least one personnel investigation, though no one has been disciplined.

However it's happening, the managers agree with law-enforcement leaders that it's unacceptable. All of the men have proven, sexually violent urges and must undergo treatment before they can ever be released into society.

"They've got a serious problem with contraband in that institution," said David Hackett, King County's lead prosecutor for sex-predator cases. "You don't want to send a sex predator down there to look at child porn."

But it's not as easy as it might seem to crack down.

Though the residents don't have Internet access, they are allowed computers, partly because the courts have consistently ruled that the treatment facility can't be run like a prison.

Henry Richards, the superintendent of the SCC, said banning computers, though under consideration, could "cut the tether to the rest of the world" for men who may one day return to society.

"One of the things we can't do is treat this group like they are correctional inmates," Richards said. "The presumption is they have every right as any citizen of the state, except for issues that must be constrained to run the treatment program."

Stashes of child porn

On Dec. 21, FBI agents went to the SCC and arrested resident John Michael Obert after the staff, acting on a tip, found compact discs encoded with pornographic images of children.

Obert has been charged in U.S. District Court with possession of child pornography and could serve at least 10 years in prison if convicted. Pending trial, he is being held at the federal detention center in SeaTac.

It wasn't a new situation at the SCC. Three other residents have been convicted of possessing child pornography since 2006, including David J. Lewis, who was sentenced to a year in jail just a few months before the FBI arrested Obert. Another resident, Richard E. Jackson, 39, was convicted in 2006 of storing at least 760 sexual images of nude children, including some involving bestiality, on his computer and on discs, according to Pierce County court records.

And for Obert, it was his second alleged offense at the SCC, and part of a history of such behavior.

Obert arrived at the SCC in 2004 after serving prison time for child molestation and failing to register as a sex offender. While in prison, he was caught with hidden magazine pictures of children that he had altered to be pornographic.

After he got out of prison, he was caught taking photos of young children at local swimming pools, and King County prosecutors filed to have him committed to the SCC.

In August 2006, SCC staff found 11 CDs in Obert's room with images of nude girls and of sexual acts between children and adults. He was charged in Pierce County Superior Court with possessing child pornography.

So when the latest images were found last month, prosecutors pressed federal charges. The 2006 case will be combined with the new case.

"It's unexplainable," said Michael Danko, one of Obert's former defense lawyers. "He's subject to scrutiny all the time, and yet he does it again."

"Not a punitive facility"

In 1990, Washington was the first state in the nation to use mental-health commitment laws to detain sex offenders after they had finished their prison terms. Since then, 18 other states have followed.

Because the SCC is legally a mental hospital, critics have been constantly challenging it as too much like a prison. For 13 years, until last year, the federal courts oversaw the operations. So far, no SCC resident has graduated to full, unconditional release.

The SCC staff does random searches as well as responding to tips from other residents, said Richards, the SCC superintendent. The staff also censors magazines for images that could be sexually arousing to residents, depending on each man's particular proclivities.

But residents' computers have been most troublesome. In 2006, Richards briefly banned all new personal computers and also outlawed certain wireless video games because they could potentially tap into private wireless networks on McNeil Island.

Residents can buy a stripped-down PC, as long as it doesn't have CD burners or USB ports that could accommodate small "thumb" drives.

Richards acknowledges that residents can be very resourceful in hiding pornographic images.

John Phillips, a Seattle attorney who has challenged the constitutionality of the SCC, agrees that the institution has the right to search computers and mail, but only if the staff has reasonable suspicions that there is contraband to find.

"This is not a punitive facility," he said. "It's a treatment program."

But in Hackett's opinion, the "pendulum has swung too far" toward the rights of residents, and the recent infiltration of child porn is proof.

"There are obvious institutional reasons to control things like compact discs coming into the institution," he said.

Richards doesn't disagree. But he said the most severe solution — banning all use of computers by residents — would require the state to prove that computers are a "pervasive, serious threat." And it would penalize those residents who are following the rules, he said.

"I'd rather not be in the Big Brother business," said Richards. "We're in the treatment business."

Jonathan Martin: 206-464-2605 or jmartin@seattletimes.com