Release Near for Rapist at Eye of Storm

When sexual predator Patrick Henry Ghilotti walks out of Atascadero State Hospital later this summer, he will endure a spotlight rarely focused on any criminal.

The 45-year-old Marin County man, an eight-time rapist who has spent almost half his life in a prison or mental hospital, will be fitted with a global positioning device so police can track his every movement. He will have to observe a daily curfew and submit to routine polygraphs and random blood and urine tests to monitor levels of a drug that will keep his testosterone lower than if he were castrated.

Though physicians say Ghilotti is safe for release, prosecutors and several of his victims argue there is no indication that his sociopathic bent won’t reemerge when he is on the outside. Next week, a judge will review the release plan and perhaps set a date to free him.

Mental health officials acknowledge that, beyond public safety concerns, the reputation of a new state program depends on how the rapist behaves.

Ghilotti will be the first inmate released under a controversial medical treatment program designed to crack down on repeat sex offenders. Created through the state’s violent sexual predator law, passed in 1996, the regimen requires the most dangerous sex offenders--those convicted of two or more attacks--to receive at least two years of medical treatment at a state hospital after serving their original sentence. If doctors still don’t think the inmate is ready for release at the end of that term, he is recommitted for another two years and the cycle repeats.

Though upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and used in 13 other states, the Sexual Predator Treatment Program has critics who say it forces inmates to remain locked up indefinitely.

Atascadero houses the program’s 325 sex offenders, yet only about 80 have agreed to undergo psychiatric treatment. The remainder refer to themselves as political prisoners and refuse to cooperate. State officials acknowledge that they cannot force inmates to undergo therapy. But without treatment, inmates have effectively abolished any hope of release, officials say.

After serving 12 years in prison, Ghilotti was committed to Atascadero in 1998 and this year petitioned for his release, saying he had completed treatment.

Earlier this month, a judge agreed after doctors testified--over the written objections of the hospital medical director--that a heavily medicated and scrutinized Ghilotti should be considered safe to continue life in Marin County, where he raped at least eight women.

Despite Ghilotti’s libido suppressants and state-mandated surveillance, which includes notifying neighbors wherever he moves, his victims don’t feel safe.

“No matter what the doctors say, they’re not the women who have to deal with Mr. Ghilotti when he creeps into their bedrooms at night,” said a Marin County woman. Ghilotti pried open a window to enter her home and rape her.

Critics of the Sexual Predator Treatment Program say it is an attempt to lock up California’s most unwanted offenders and throw away the key.

“I can understand the reluctance to deal with one of these people, but a man like this hasn’t just paid his price to society, he’s overpaid it,” said Stephen Hobson, head deputy of the mental health branch of the Los Angeles County public defender’s office.

“Once he’s served his time, you can’t keep him locked up just because you’re afraid of him. You have to let him go--it’s one of the fundamentals of our justice system,” Hobson said.

Predator Called Incapable of Change

So just what is society getting in Patrick Ghilotti?

Prosecutors paint a portrait of a offender incapable of change. Charged in 1978 with raping seven women in a series of home invasions, he reportedly stalked his prey--looking for victims living in houses without men. He was 23 years old then and served six years in a state hospital and prison. Within seven months of his release from prison, at age 29, he raped another woman and was sentenced to 24 years.

“Here’s someone who started his crimes young,” said Marin County Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Charmatz. “Since 1985, he hasn’t lived in a free society for more than a few months without re-offending. With that long-standing pattern, we think there’s a strong likelihood he can’t break his crime cycle.”

At a recent hearing, Marin County Superior Judge John S. Graham also expressed doubts about Ghilotti. But, the judge said, just because he “looks like a sufficiently dangerous ogre in the abstract and should never be released . . . isn’t the reason for not following the law.”

Ghilotti’s defense attorney describes him as an avid San Francisco 49ers fan and scuba diver who with therapy has become calm, thoughtful and nonthreatening.

“He’s someone who’s changed a great deal,” said Ed Farrell, a Marin County deputy public defender. “His medication eliminates his deviant sex drive and fantasies.”

Under the terms of his release, Ghilotti will take the testosterone-reducing drug Lupron. Still, state officials offer no guarantees that Ghilotti will not rape again.

“There’s no such thing as curing a sex offender,” said Nora Romero, a spokeswoman for the Department of Mental Health. “You can try to teach them how to cope with their deviant urges, give them medication to curb their drive and skills to manage their obsessions. But it’s like dealing with . . . alcoholism.”

Judge Graham has criticized state officials for failing to adequately prepare a proper outpatient program.

Romero said that the department has not “dragged its heels,” and that creating a community safety plan for an offender like Ghilotti takes time. She said the release order came as a surprise, especially after Atascadero State Hospital Medical Director Robert Knapp, in a March letter to the judge, opposed Ghilotti’s release.

Knapp said Ghilotti was “likely to engage in sexually violent criminal behavior” if freed.

Of all the offenders in predator programs nationwide, “only a tiny handful” have ever been released, said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of a sexual disorders clinic affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Maryland.

“If these people are indeed ill, they should receive treatment when they’re first incarcerated--why wait till after [the] prison sentence?” he said. “But that’s when the system changes the rules on these inmates.”

‘It’s Not Just About Taking Pills’

Hobson said that if state officials are going to give program graduates large amounts of testosterone-reducing drugs, why not just use the drugs immediately after their prison release and forgo expensive hospitalization?

“Society probably isn’t getting anything much different than if they had released Mr. Ghilotti right out of prison,” he said.

Mike Hughes, head of Atascadero’s sexual predator program, said inmates undergo intense cognitive and behavioral treatment. “Patients learn skills to manage their behavior,” he said. “It’s not just about taking pills.”

But at least one of the rapist’s victims fears that although global positioning signals may alert police if Ghilotti strays near her home, it will not rule out chance encounters.

“I don’t like the idea that I could stand in line in Costco and find him standing behind me,” said the Marin County woman.