Sex Offender Has Wing of Hospital All to Self

It has 20 bedrooms, 11 guards and an annual budget of $215,720. But the state hospital wing that houses Angela Coffel has only one patient.

Missouri opened the wing for Coffel in August after she completed her prison term for molesting two boys. She is being held under a law that allows the state to commit sexual predators who are still a risk to the public.

But Coffel is the only woman in Missouri to be hospitalized and one of a handful in the 15 states with similar laws. Coffel’s unique situation required the state to open the new wing solely for her.

State lawmakers are stunned by the cost. And Coffel is just plain bored.

“It’s making her nuts because it’s like she’s in solitary confinement,” said her attorney, Lyn Ruess. “It’s not right.”

Coffel has not been designated a sexual predator, but a judge ordered that she remain hospitalized until a trial is held to determine whether the law applies to her. The judge said prosecutors had a good chance of proving that she would be a risk if released.

No trial date has been set, but the judge is to hear arguments Wednesday on a defense motion to dismiss the state’s request that Coffel be classified as a sexual predator.

Coffel was sentenced in 1996 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to performing oral sex on two boys, ages 11 and 14. Ruess contends that Coffel, who was 17 at the time, was drunk and obliging the boys’ request in a game of Truth or Dare.

But Missouri Atty. Gen. Jay Nixon says Coffel knew at the time that she had HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. He also argues that Coffel is likely to be a threat if released because she has an antisocial personality disorder, abuses alcohol and is a sexual sadist.

Ruess said prosecutors want her client committed because they fear she will spread the virus if released.

“I think they’re afraid she’s going to get out and have sex with young boys and give the young boys AIDS,” Ruess said. “She’s not a pedophile, she doesn’t have any sexual disorders. I think it’s just their overreacting to their fears.”

In a 1997 Kansas case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to commit sexual predators who have finished their prison terms. Defense attorneys had argued that committing inmates who had done their time was extra punishment, but the court said keeping sexual predators locked up to protect society was not punitive.

About 1,300 inmates nationwide have been committed after completing their prison sentences, said Dennis Doren, a Wisconsin state mental-health evaluator who tracks sexual predator cases across the country.

But because far fewer women than men are convicted of sex crimes, only three women in the country besides Coffel have been placed in state mental hospitals after serving their sentences. They are in California, Minnesota and Washington, Doren said.