Internal documents show staff-offender relationships, drug smuggling
By LEVI PULKKINEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
That Donald Gamer would want photos of child sex is no surprise.
A convicted sex offender, the wheelchair-bound old man was locked away with 291 others at the state's Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island. There they were in September, Gamer and six other offenders, when FBI agents arrived to take them into federal custody. Five of the seven men have since admitted to obtaining digital copies of photos and films showing children being raped or put on display.
That men inside the facility would do so was also no surprise. It had happened before and, apparently, has happened since.
How they managed to sneak child porn into a semi-secure facility, though, remains a mystery.
Internal reports show the facility -- an un-prison designed to house sex criminals who've served their prison but are deemed too dangerous to be released -- has suffered from contraband problems often associated with penal institutions.
Documents obtained by seattlepi.com show should that in the past five years child pornography has been found at the center on at least 16 occasions. The total number of incidents is likely higher, due in part to redactions of information related to ongoing criminal investigations.
Beyond the residents' behavior, disciplinary files show that several Department of Social and Health Services employees hired to manage the facility apparently broke or bent rules of conduct.
In one case, an ex-employee attempted to smuggle a package to a sex predator residing at the center. In another, a female employee was found, her clothing in disarray, at a private home in the company of an offender she was supposed to be escorting.
Another former employee is under federal indictment following allegations he conspired with a Special Commitment Center resident to smuggle crack cocaine into the facility. The pair were handed over to federal authorities by the sex offender's girlfriend, a former nurse at the center.
Not prison, not hospital
March 26, 2007, was a big day for the Special Commitment Center, one of the biggest in its 20-year history.
After 13 years under the eye of the federal courts, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez ended an inquiry into allegations that the center was nothing more than a holding center to tuck away men who'd served their time but weren't welcome back in society.
Initially launched at the Monroe Correctional Complex in 1990, the Special Commitment Center and the civil commitment legal process that puts offenders there were something new in the American justice system.
The commitment process allows a jury, at a prosecutor's request, to order a sex criminal indefinitely held as a violent sexual predator. Jurors must find the offender's conduct was predatory, that a mental defect will likely cause the offender to attack again, and that the offender is more likely than not to offend again.
In theory if not in fact, the center is there to fix the offenders.
Pete MacDonald, a public defender representing 13 center residents, argues that the Special Commitment Center does not deliver the rehabilitation promised.
"It's a de facto warehouse, regardless of what the intention is," said MacDonald, an attorney with The Defender Association.
"People probably don't care about this," he continued, "but this is a civil liberties issue."
Four years into the effort, offenders housed at the facility filed a federal lawsuit that prompted an $11 million fine -- later dismissed -- and federal court oversight of the facility. Martinez's order ended that oversight finding that the Special Commitment Center was providing the treatment required under law and a path out for offenders.
"This case is most troublesome to the court in that there seems to be no right answer, and no good fix for the situation these plaintiffs face," Martinez said in his ruling. "The court can do its best to ensure adequate treatment and facilities, but ultimately must succumb to the limitations of the law."
Supporters of the commitment center note that a number of offenders have moved on from the facility, either into the community or the halfway houses.
Since its inception, the Special Commitment Center has moved four offenders out of supervision. Eight are currently at off-island halfway houses in the King and Pierce counties; six more are at private homes under the state's watch.
The Department of Social and Health Services also allows residents liberties unheard of in state prisons, including, until recently, access to personal computers. That freedom was curtailed earlier in March when the Legislature allowed center staff to decide whether individual residents should retain their computers.
The judge's ruling did little to end the debate over the facility, which has been assailed by residents and their attorneys as a prison under another name.
MacDonald said that treatment almost always goes nowhere for the 40 percent of center residents who elect to participate in it.
Most residents of the center -- about 60 percent -- don't participate in the treatment offered, MacDonald said. It strains belief, he argued, that so few residents would participate in treatment if it provided a path out of the center.
"If there was a viable treatment program that was being offered," the attorney said, "I would bet my next two years of paychecks that they'd be signing up in a heartbeat."
New restrictions imposed
In the wake of September's child pornography indictments, the Legislature enacted new restrictions on computer use by residents. The move, MacDonald said, will likely draw legal action from those confined at the Special Commitment Center.
The PCs purchased by residents can't surf the Internet, but, according to charging documents, they worked well enough to view disks of child pornography secreted into the center.
Asking that the Legislature limit computer access at the center, Superintendent Kelly Cunningham told a state Senate committee that allowing the sex predators to access computers is akin to passing out shot glasses at a rehab center.
Speaking in January, Cunningham told the committee that eight more residents are expected to face federal indictment on child pornography charges. Such a move would bring the total number of residents to 17 in recent years.
While residents are already blocked from accessing the Internet, Cunningham said simply having the machines "represents a situation which we cannot control." With the equivalent of two full-time employees reviewing residents' computers, the center continues to run a nine-month backlog in computer reviews.
MacDonald argued restrictions on computer access would be an overreaction that would penalize offenders who haven't violated the law. Gary Friedman, a prison chaplain and inmate rights activist, was more blunt.
While he stopped short of saying center staff had a hand in getting the materials into the facility, Friedman told the Legislature that security at the facility is as tight that of a prison. He also noted that mail into the facility is screened and visitors are thoroughly searched.
"I am absolutely astounded that I keep hearing SCC personnel on TV and elsewhere saying they can't keep this stuff out of there," Friedman, of Jewish Prisoner Services, told the Senate panel. "I think SCC has been selling you a bill of goods."
'Boundary issues'
By whatever means, internal violation reports and U.S. District Court charging documents show those in the special commitment system have obtained drugs, "scrubbing" software and miscellaneous contraband.
One resident was caught receiving a pair of shoes with a cell phone tucked in the toe. Others were found with videos legal outside the center's walls -- a straight-to-video sequel "American Pie Presents the Naked Mile," an adult movie "Loise's Lesbian Escapades" -- and violent video games banned at the facility.
On several occasions, center staff found residents engaging in unusual financial activity, either using the same bank account or attempting to sneak credit cards into the facility.
Despite claims to the contrary, DSHS Mental Health Systems Director Kellogg said the facility is, by its nature, not as tightly controlled as a prison.
"These are civil institutions and they're not impenetrable," said Kellogg, whose area of responsibility includes the Special Commitment Center as well as the state mental hospitals.
Most concerning, residents have been caught with child pornography on at least 16 occasions since 2004. Several of those discoveries have resulted in state charges through the Pierce County Sheriff's Office; nine have prompted federal indictments.
Facility records also show that staff at the Special Commitment Center has, at times, been less than well behaved.
In 2009 alone, employees were reprimanded on allegations that they accessed pornography on the center's computers, failed to notify management following a drunk driving arrest and fell asleep on the job, as well as for "boundary issues."
With 400 employees, Kellogg said there are bound to be some who act badly. Those who were caught doing so, he argued, were disciplined in accordance with agency rules or fired depending on their behavior.
"When you have a large group of people," Kellogg said, "you'll find individuals who don't comport with the rules."
"Boundary issues" prompted one staff member -- a "residential rehabilitation counselor," a position which does not require any specialized training beyond a high school diploma -- to resign in October 2007.
The woman was found unconscious at the home of a resident's relative six months before, according to redacted disciplinary notices obtained by seattlepi.com through a public records request. When Lakewood police found her, she was escorting the Special Commitment Center resident.
When officers arrived, according to the report, the woman's "clothing and hair (were) disarrayed when encountered by a Lakewood police officer at the home of a relative of a resident whom (she) was escorting."
Investigators reviewing GPS records against travel logs filed by the counselor found 22 irregularities on trips in which she was escorting that Special Commitment Center resident. While moving the man into a secure wing of the Special Commitment Center, staff found a photo of the counselor posing in lingerie hidden in picture frame.
Interviewed by investigators, the woman claimed she'd accidentally brought the photo into the Special Commitment Center with a photo album containing samples of cake decorations. Other employees who'd viewed the album said they'd never seen the photo before.
"You allowed a sexually provocative photograph of yourself to become available to a SCC resident, you falsified your application for employment, and you made unauthorized deviations from planned routes while on escorted trips into the community with resident (name redacted), a sexually violent predator," former Superintendent Henry Richards said in a disciplinary letter issued Oct. 26, 2007, also noting that the woman appeared to have falsely claimed to have a college degree.
"Any one of these egregious offenses would have justified termination," Richards continued. "Your behaviors display a severe lack of judgment and a total disregard for the need to maintain appropriate boundaries with residents."
The woman resigned her position to avoid being fired.
At the same time, records show a second counselor at the facility was under investigation following suspicions that he had been helping a resident smuggle a CD into the facility.
The investigation was launched in November 2007 after the counselor approached another Special Commitment Center employee and asked that he pass a CD to a resident.
"(Redacted) says you and he are cool," the counselor said, according to disciplinary files. "Can you give this to him?"
The other employee reported the incident and turned the disc over to investigators. The CD was later found to contain the Microsoft Vista operating system.
Investigators learned that the man had received packages at his home from the resident's brother and attempted to pass it into the facility, according to disciplinary records. The counselor also had unauthorized contact with the man inside the facility.
Spotted in a unit he was not authorized to be in, the man told a coworker he was trying to borrow a magazine.
"You repeatedly failed to maintain appropriate boundaries with a Sexually Violent Predator and failed to follow policies designed to ensure your own safety, as well as that of staff and the resident population," Richards said in a disciplinary letter.
Also cited for falling asleep on the job and yelling at a colleague, the man was fired June 4, 2008.
Kellogg said Special Commitment Center management responds within agency rules when misconduct is discovered.
"Anything that is illegal … and certainly anything if it impacted the people you serve, you're going to get fired," the Department of Social and Health Services executive said.
Drug smuggling, offender-staff relations
Those oddities and violations were background noise on Sept. 17 when FBI agents arrived at the McNeil Island center to arrest seven residents indicted on child pornography charges.
Just weeks before to the raid, resident and convicted child molester William C. Enright had been indicted by federal prosecutors on identical charges. Initially charged in state court, Enright told investigators he had "child erotica, rather than child pornography."
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children begged to differ -- of the 300 images and 80 movies found on Enright's computer, 50 included children known to law enforcement. The digital files, apparently transmitted through a CD, showed boys and girls under 10 years of age being sexually assaulted.
Two years before Enright's arrest, federal prosecutors brought child porn charges against another resident, convicted child molester John Michael Obert. Details of Obert's offense were not available; he pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in February 2009 through a sealed plea agreement and has not yet been sentenced.
Then there is Lawrence A. Williams, a Special Commitment Center resident accused of conspiring with center employee Paepaega Matautia, Jr., to smuggle crack cocaine into the facility.
According to U.S. District Court filings, Williams came to the attention of the FBI after his girlfriend -- formerly a nurse at the Special Commitment Center -- reported that he had asked her to help Matautia smuggle drugs to him inside the center.
State Patrol troopers and FBI agents ultimately set up a "buy-bust" operation on July 31, 2008, in which Matautia was caught picking up a dozen crack rocks from Williams' girlfriend, federal prosecutors allege.
Days later, prosecutors allege Portland, Ore., resident Justine A. Stephens delivered a threatening note to Williams' girlfriend. Stephens has since been charged with delivering cocaine to the former Special Commitment Center nurse.
According to FBI statements to the court, Williams was also caught on a recorded jail phone threatening the woman who had turned him in.
"Lawrence Williams called the (confidential informant's) telephone on several occasions and left threatening voicemail messages," investigators claimed in court documents. "If he was arrested, he (said he) would 'take everyone down' with him."
Williams pleaded guilty to the federal drug charge but has since withdrawn that plea. In letters to the court, he said he did so because SeaTac Federal Detention Center staff wouldn't let him contact the former-Special Commitment Center nurse with whom he claims to still be romantically involved.
'Scarred for life'
Of the seven men arrested on child pornography charges in September, five have pleaded guilty to the charges against them. Details of the alleged offenses remain elusive, as plea documents have been filed under seal.
Gamer, the first of the recent batch of arrestees to be sentenced, arrived at a Tacoma courtroom on March 3 facing a 10-year prison term. He received exactly that.
A wheelchair-bound man of 62 years, Gamer told U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle he did as much as anyone to see justice served after he was caught with child pornography two years ago.
He pleaded guilty. He agreed to a minimum term that will all but guarantee he dies in federal prison or confined at the Special Commitment Center. He apologized for what he did.
"I didn't want to review what I screwed up and I didn't think anyone else would want to review my screw up," Gamer told the federal judge. "All I can do is move forward with my life, what little bit there is."
Gamer's plea afforded Settle an opportunity to wonder aloud why Gamer -- a victim of abuse in childhood whose sister died at his father's hands -- is attracted to the abuse of children.
Settle said the seriousness of the offense, Gamer's specifically and child pornography generally, "cannot be overstated."
"The children who are depicted in these videos are truly scarred for life," Settle said. "There must be some way of constraining this market that is out there."
Whether that market has been closed at the Special Commitment Center remains an open question.
Thus far, authorities have offered no indication of how child pornography made its way into the center. No staff members have been publicly implicated in the incidents, nor has anyone outside the facility.
Asked whether the center has locked out child pornography, Kellogg allowed that the department "can do better."
"I'm hopeful that we're near the day that child pornography will not be accessible in any form at the SCC," Kellogg said. "I'm not confident that we are there yet."
Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com.
