In re J.S.

Decision Date24 May 2021
Docket NumberDOCKET NO. A-0625-19
Parties In the MATTER OF the Civil COMMITMENT OF J.S., SVP 24-99.
CourtNew Jersey Superior Court — Appellate Division

Joseph E. Krakora, Public Defender, attorney for appellant J.S. (Joan D. VanPelt, Newark, Designated Counsel, on the brief).

Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, attorney for respondent State of New Jersey (Melissa H. Raksa, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel; Stephen Slocum, Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).

Before Judges Yannotti, Haas, and Mawla.

The opinion of the court was delivered by

MAWLA, J.A.D.

J.S. appeals from a September 6, 2019 order finding he continued to be a sexually-violent predator who must be civilly committed in the Special Treatment Unit (STU) under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (SVPA), N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.24 to -27.38. We affirm.

We previously described J.S.'s history of serious sexual offenses leading to his sentence to the Adult Diagnostic & Treatment Center (ADTC) in 1994, subsequent commitment to the STU in 1999, and continued commitment after various annual reviews from 2002 through 2014, as follows:

In 1986, J.S. caused a four-year-old girl to lick his penis and caused her six-year-old brother to engage in sexual conduct. J.S. pled guilty to second-degree sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(b), and was sentenced to four years of probation.
Also in 1986, J.S. repeatedly forced a four-year-old boy to perform fellatio on him, and threatened to come back and kill him. In 1992, the boy revealed J.S.'s conduct. In 1994[,] J.S. pled guilty to first-degree aggravated sexual assault, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-2(a), third-degree terroristic threats, N.J.S.A. 2C:12-3(a), and third-degree witness tampering, N.J.S.A. 2C:28-5(a), and was sentenced to seven years in the ... ADTC[ ].
Meanwhile, in 1994 J.S. took pictures of a nude fifteen-year-old girl. He pled guilty to second-degree and fourth-degree endangering the welfare of a child, N.J.S.A. 2C:24-4(b)(3) and (b)(5)(b), and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, N.J.S.A. 2C:14-3(b), and was sentenced to seven years in prison. The two seven-year terms were concurrent.
[ In re Civ. Commitment of J.S., No. A-3665-14 (App. Div. Aug. 27, 2018) (slip op. at 1-2), 2018 WL 4055925.]

At the hearing leading to the prior appeal, the State presented two expert witnesses, Dr. Indra Cidambi and Dr. Tarmeen Sahni, who testified J.S.'s "mental conditions predispose J.S. to commit acts of sexual violence." Id. at 3. Dr. Cidambi testified J.S. had "pedophilic disorder; unspecified paraphilic disorder; and an unspecified personality disorder with antisocial features. She found they affect him emotionally, cognitively, or volitionally." Ibid. Dr. Sahni similarly testified, while J.S. refused her interview, "his file showed he ha[d] pedophilia, [was] sexually attracted to both genders, non-exclusive type; paraphilia

, not otherwise specified, with non-consent and sadistic features; and personality disorder, not otherwise specified, with schizotypal and antisocial traits." Ibid. J.S.'s expert witnesses testified he had "pedophilic disorder, non-exclusive type, [was] sexually attracted to both genders; conversion disorder; ... personality disorder, not otherwise specified[;] ... and bipolar disorder with strong indication of schizotypal personality disorder." Id. at 3-4. All experts agreed "as a result of his mental abnormalities or disorders, J.S. has serious difficulty controlling sexually violent behavior, and that it was highly likely he would reoffend if released." Id. at 4.

We noted J.S. did "not dispute that he satisfied the statutory standard for continued civil commitment." Id. at 6. Rather, he argued "the State failed to provide effective treatment ... as required by the SVPA and the New Jersey Supreme Court, allowing J.S. to languish for fifteen years without proper psychiatric care"; "he fear[ed] for his safety at the STU due to the severe abuse that J.S. has testified he suffered"; and "the trial court found that he has not made any progress in his treatment ... and he is unlikely to make any progress in the future, rendering his continued commitment ... punitive and unconstitutional." Id. at 4.

We concluded as follows:

If J.S.'s complaints were inadequate to justify his transfer to [the Ann Klein Forensic Center, a less restrictive environment than the STU], they are certainly inadequate to justify his release into the community. ... Security concerns should be addressed to the appropriate authorities, but they are not a basis under the SVPA for releasing J.S. into the community when it is highly likely that that he will commit new acts of sexual violence if released.
[ Id. at 20.]

This appeal arises from an annual review hearing pursuant to N.J.S.A. 30:4-27.35 and 27.32(a), which occurred over two days in August 2019. The State presented expert testimony from Dean DeCrisce, M.D. and J.S. also testified, against his attorney's advice. J.S. stipulated to the admission of the Treatment Progress Review Committee (TPRC) report prepared by Zachary Yeoman, Psy.D., who did not testify. Dr. DeCrisce offered detailed testimony elaborating on J.S.'s history, including allegations of repeated conduct similar to the offenses leading to his conviction and commitment, stating:

[O]ne of them occurred in March 1994, where ... this family contacted the police. [J.S.] called and a police report was made, and there was a discussion of setting up some type of taping of further phone conversations when [J.S.] stopped making the calls and eventually the mother of the girl decided not to pursue the complaint.
But he had called a family under the ruse of asking for an older daughter who no longer lived there, and he ended up speaking to a [fifteen]-year-old girl, and kept her on the phone for four hours, talking about sexual matters, vulgar sexual matters, where he asked her to ... define various sexual terms which are quite vulgar — what is a hand job? What's her understanding of fingering and all kinds of other obscene and offensive contact that she did not want to participate in, but she was intimidated or afraid of [J.S.] and never got off the phone. He tried to proposition her. It wasn't just a sexual crank call, if you will. He was trying to set it up to engage with her. He said we'll have sex together. I'll take it slow. I'll stop if you're in pain. I'll take you to get birth control pills. I'll always be there for you. And called her a few other times. And like I said, this ended up with a written police report, written victim statement, but the mother declined to sign a complaint and it didn't go forward.
And then a very substantial and significant note that does lead to further consideration of sadistic elements in [J.S.'s] arousal, when they had arrested him for ... [having pictures of child pornography] in [a] lockbox, there were also a few credit cards and a license belonging to a particular woman, C.G. They identified and contacted this woman, and she spoke to them ....
... She said she dated [J.S.] for three years, that she had lived with [J.S.] for one year in his brother's home, and that he ... beat her and repeatedly forced her to engage in ... sex against her will on at least [twenty-five] occasions. ... [O]n one ... particularly unusually cruel occasion he had ... threatened her at knife point to [fellate] a dog, and said ["]if you don't do it[,] I'm going to kill you.["] And she refused to do it. ... [T]his was happening in the home where he lived with his father. He got called upstairs by his father for an unrelated issue, and he said when I come back if you haven't killed yourself I will. And she reported that she took an overdose to kill herself and ended up in the hospital because she was afraid of [J.S.].
She said that [J.S.] used her as a means to an end[ ], and as long as he was getting his needs met[,] he didn't care about anything else.
....
[T]hey did not charge [J.S.] with these reported offenses. ... But once again ... police [had] taken [a] statement, and [this incident] appears to be kind of bizarre and cruel, somewhat in line to the offense that he actually was convicted of in terms of threatening the boy.

Dr. DeCrisce testified that, unlike other pedophiles, J.S.'s history was particularly different and sadistic because

ultimately [J.S.] has these offenses against three children occurring within a similar period of time when he's [eighteen] years old. One of them is particularly an unusually cruel and even sadistic, urinating on the child in the trash can, and threatening to kill him, very unusual, even bizarre.
....
... I've seen hundreds and hundreds of sex offenders, maybe done a thousand evaluations here over many years. That's not the typical interaction with a child to terrorize and humiliate a child. Most child offenders ... aren't seeking in their own minds to purposely hurt the children. They're seeking to get their needs met in some distorted way, but they're not out to purposely hurt the child. Peeing in a trash can [on] the child[,] ... kicking him in the groin, I mean, that's sadistic in nature. ... I didn't ultimately give him the diagnosis of sexual sadism, but I understand that that is certainly a sadistic interaction.

Dr. DeCrisce explained that during his time in the STU, J.S. "had repeated allegations of sexual misconduct in some way or another, mostly related to phone use." Up until 2017, J.S. allegedly "repeatedly ... call[ed] children ... in other states, asking women about their children." He was also accused of making multiple harassing sexual phone calls to women, some of whom complained to the STU.

For example, he called a motel, engaged in a conversation with a woman who answered, turned the conversation sexual and then "ask[ed] her repeatedly about her [fourteen]-year-old daughter." He also engaged in a "Bible correspondence course," in which he had a follow-up phone call with a female member. He made "unusually uncomfortable...

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