Freedom short for released felon

The "Hyde Park rapist" returns to custody until a new place to live is found.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published October 9, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Fraser Hale | Times (2002)] In 2002, the state agreed to the release Bobby Joe Helms on almost the same contract as the one approved Monday, which calls for him to abide by a curfew and take polygraph tests to show he is meeting the terms of his outpatient sex offender treatment program.

It lasted seven hours.

Convicted twice of sexual battery, Bobby Joe Helms confessed in the 1980s to committing 18 attacks in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties. He has been incarcerated almost continuously since 1986, first in prison, then at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia.

On Monday, Hillsborough Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett signed off on Helms' monitored release after hearing that two doctors felt he no longer posed a threat to the community.

But by day's end, the judge had ordered Helms back into custody.

Helms, 49, was supposed to move to a St. Petersburg mobile home park with other sex offenders and felons. But when four TV trucks showed up first, the park's management decided it wasn't up for the scrutiny and kicked him out.

"I wasn't really aware of who this person was," said Nancy Morais, executive director of the nonprofit Florida Justice Alliance, which places felons in the park.

Helms' attorney, Jeanine Cohen, said she and her client decided it would be best for him to return to Arcadia rather than risk violating his release contract with the state. Part of that contract calls for him to have a housing arrangement approved by doctors and prosecutors.

But the turnabout only temporarily stalls Helms' return to the community.

Rita Peters, chief prosecutor for Hillsborough's sex crimes division, said doctors feel that Helms is no longer likely to commit a new sexually violent act. That's the threshold for keeping someone involuntarily committed under the state's Jimmy Ryce Act once the criminal sentence is up.

The state had no grounds to contest Helms' release, she said.

"He'd basically done everything you could possibly do at the Civil Commitment Center," she said.

The doctors' ruling didn't come as a complete surprise. They made the same one five years ago.

Several experts said in 2002 that Helms should be let out, Peters said. The state agreed to the release on almost the same contract as the one approved Monday, which calls for Helms to abide by a curfew and take polygraph tests to show he is meeting the terms of his outpatient sex offender treatment program.

But within a year of his 2002 release, he had failed three polygraph tests. Helms agreed he had breached the terms of his contract. Back to Arcadia he went.

At the time, one of his victims, a woman he raped along with her sister in October 1986 in their Tampa home, said, "I'd like to see him in prison for the rest of his life."

Helms has been evaluated annually ever since. In recent months, two of the same doctors who evaluated him in 2002 deemed him fit to try freedom again, Peters said.

Cohen said the Florida Justice Alliance had agreed to let Helms live at the Palace Mobile Home Park at 2500 54th Ave. N and place him in an offender re-entry program.

But Morais, the director, said she didn't have Helms' full criminal history when she gave the okay.

Helms, who worked as a cook at a Clearwater restaurant, committed a series of rapes and burglaries in the Hyde Park area in the mid-1980s. In 1986, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison on a single sexual battery charge after he confessed to other attacks in exchange for the sentence. Prosecutors defended the deal at the time, citing a lack of evidence. Coupled with a conviction for the 1985 rape of a 15-year-old Clearwater girl, he served 14 years in prison.

Morais said her organization deals only with low-profile felons and offenders. She learned details about Helms on Monday from a Department of Corrections officer.

"I've got to be careful," she said. "I've got other offenders there, and I've got to think about them and their concerns."

Cohen said the park threatened to evict about 90 sex offenders living there if Helms was allowed in.

Once Cohen finds Helms new housing and he is re-released, he will also finish about six more years on a probation term for armed burglary and robbery convictions.

If he violates his probation or the contract, he will find himself back in custody, Peters said.

Cohen, who represented Helms in 2002, said prosecutors dodged a constitutional challenge of the Jimmy Ryce Act by granting her client's release.

"He worked very hard in treatment," she said. "He deserved to be released again."

Two of Helms' victims watched him in the courtroom Monday. Peters said they knew what was coming and understood the state was powerless to object.

Outside the courthouse, Helms vowed to stop his swinging-doors journey through the criminal justice system.

"My goal is to go out and do right and follow all the rules," he said. "I've got my life under control now. I don't plan on going out and hurting anyone no more."

Times staff writer Abhi Raghunathan contributed to this story. Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or 813 226-3337.

In the system

August 1986: Bobby Joe Helms pleads guilty to one count of sexual battery in Hillsborough County and admits to others. Sentenced to 10 years in prison.

November 1987: Sentenced to prison for sexual battery of a 15-year-old girl in Pinellas County.

May 1999: Released from prison but held involuntarily in the state's Civil Commitment Center.

November 2002: Granted release under a contract with the state.

July 2003: Returns to the Civil Commitment Center after failing polygraph tests.

October 2007: Granted release but then returned to custody after housing arrangement falls through.

[Last modified October 9, 2007, 23:47:41]