Sex offender Geltz pleads guilty of assault, will stay behind bars

A convicted sex offender freed from a court-ordered commitment by the Iowa Supreme Court will stay behind bars for the coming months after pleading guilty to an assault charge.

Anthony William Geltz, 20, is serving a two-year prison sentence handed down by a Cherokee County district judge at a Dec. 23 hearing, according to online court records. In October, Geltz was charged after he assaulted an employee at the state-run Cherokee Mental Health Institute.

Geltz was placed in a locked wing at the Cherokee institution for sexually violent predators when he was committed in April 2012. In 2008, Geltz pleaded guilty in juvenile court of second-degree sexual abuse after he abused a child at a Davenport restaurant when he was 14.

In December, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state couldn’t keep Geltz committed at the facility, despite justices’ agreeing with concerns that he might abuse again if released. At age 12, Geltz was sent to live at the Annie Wittenmyer Home in Davenport after he abused his stepsister and other neighborhood children, according to court papers.

Geltz also had a history of “sexual misconduct” during his time at the State Training School for Boys in Eldora. But because juvenile adjudications are not considered criminal convictions under Iowa law, Geltz did not meet the criteria required by the state to be committed, the court ruled.

The prison sentence for the time being quells concerns about Geltz returning to the general public. However, his two-year sentence will be complete on May 20, due in part to an Iowa law that grants 1.2 days of credit for each day served, said Fred Scaletta, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Corrections.

Clinton County Attorney Mike Wolf — whose office has handled the commitment process — said Tuesday that it’s too early to know what legal options, if any, can be used to keep Geltz from being released after he finishes his prison sentence.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to speculate at this point,” he said. “We’re taking things day by day and step by step.”

Wolf said he couldn’t discuss what options have been considered.

In October, Geltz received a two-year suspended prison sentence after pleading guilty to a similar August assault charge.

Cherokee County Attorney Ryan Kolpin did not return a phone call Tuesday from a reporter seeking information on how Geltz’s December guilty plea might affect the suspended prison sentence.

Categories: county attorney, court ruled, iowa law, iowa supreme, october geltz, pleading guilty, prison sentence, sex offender, suspended prison

Can Therapy Help Paedophiles to Resist their Urges?

Minnesota is one of 20 states that have passed civil commitment laws. This means that courts in these states are able to confine child molesters, rapists and other sex offenders who have finished their prison sentences but are deemed too dangerous to re-enter the community. For these offenders, therapy isn’t a complementary wellness add-on, it’s crucial to their overall wellbeing. Without the proof that therapy has made them safe to leave, the former inmates can stay in prison indefinitely.

 

According to David Prescott, a licensed therapist who has spent years sitting face to face with paedophiles trying to evaluate their progress, ‘So far, research shows that treatment very definitely can work.’ However, critics of the treatment argues that psychotherapy does nothing for the wellness of sex offenders – or, indeed, their potential victims – if the person drops out or is kicked out of therapy. Moreover, the treatment centres can cost tens of thousands of dollars each year – and that’s per person. In 2011, a government audit showed Minnesota spent $120,000 annually per person in civil commitment.

 

Researchers have been working with sex offenders for two decades now, but still we are without a cure for deviant urges. Therefore, the job of a therapist is to help paedophiles resist their urges. Dr. Fred Berlin, director of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic in Baltimore, comments, ‘We don’t know how to change the fact that a person is sexually attracted to children, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be successful treatment.’ From the research, we know it is better to take an empathetic tone with paedophiles, rather than a harsh or confrontational one, which can be a challenge for therapists.

 

Prescott, a past president of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers who is now the clinical instructor of the Becket Family of Services Centre in Maine, clarifies, ‘Let me just be clear, you can be very challenging by being warm and empathic.’ If someone resists group therapy, for instance, Prescott notes he might respond by saying, ‘You don’t like the term sex offender, and yet your victim was willing to testify against you?’ Robin Wilson, an assistant professor of psychiatry at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, points out that many paedophiles have issues with their personal boundaries and interpersonal violence, and treating these issues may keep them from abusing others.

 

However, Wilson continues, it is more important to have a support system of people around the sex offender who will hold him accountable for good behaviour once he re-enters the community. (Wilson estimates 5% or less of paedophiles are female, hence the use of “he”.) Wilson asserts, ‘There’s a common misperception that sex offenders are sex offenders all the time. That’s not necessarily true. Under certain circumstances they do have normal relationships.’ Dr. Richard Krueger, who is in the group working on updating the information about paedophilia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, adds that the “pedohebephilic” type of paedophile, who is sexually attracted to both prepubescent and pubescent children (rather than the “hebephilic” type, who is sexually attracted solely to pubescent children) can sometimes be nudged into focusing on adults.

 

Still, Krueger, who is the medical director of the Sexual Behaviour Clinic at New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York, also points out that paedophiles who fall under the “classic type,” and are attracted only to prepubescent children, usually under the age of 11, often don’t change their focus. He argues, ‘With some paedophiles who are fixated, you can’t really make much of a dent; you may not be able to change their sexual interest pattern. In these situations pretty much you can only repress things, and you would use androgen [drug] therapy to do this.’

Categories: civil commitment, civil commitment law, nbsp, offenders, paedophiles, Paedophilia, pubescent children, sex offender, sex offenders, sexually attracted, talk therapy, therapy