Release puts spotlight on Jimmy Ryce Act

By COLLEEN JENKINS, Times Staff Writer
Published October 10, 2007

TAMPA - Bobby Joe Helms, the "Hyde Park rapist" who was convicted of two sexual batteries but confessed to 16 other attacks in the 1980s, spent just 20 years in custody.

If not for the Jimmy Ryce Act, he would have gotten out sooner.

The law - decried as unconstitutional by critics - allows dangerous sex offenders to be held for further treatment once their prison term is up. It kept Helms, 49, in custody for about seven years after his release from prison.

During that time, a prosecutor said, he made "substantial gains" in his treatment.

Pending a suitable housing arrangement, doctors say Helms is rehabilitated enough to return to the community.

Rita Peters, chief of the sex crimes division of the Hillsborough State Attorney's Office, said Helms may prove a success story for the law enacted to protect the public from sexual predators.

"If we're to believe what the doctors say, then the Jimmy Ryce Act worked," she said Tuesday.

Helms likely will be released in the coming days on a contract that requires him to continue sex offender treatment, abide by a curfew and pass polygraph tests.

A judge signed off on the plan Monday but ended up ordering Helms back to the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia after a St. Petersburg mobile home park decided he was too dangerous to live there.

Peters didn't object to Helms' release because she had no evidence to show that he was likely to commit a new sexually violent offense, the criterion necessary to hold someone.

Had he committed his crimes in a later era, however, the civil commitment issue likely would be moot, the prosecutor said.

Helms was convicted of one sexual battery each in Hillsborough and Pinellas, but avoided punishment for his dozen other rapes, four attempts and 26 burglaries because police said his statements were the only decent evidence they had.

That's why they agreed to a plea deal that called for 10 years in prison and 15 years of probation. Helms also received a 17-year prison sentence for the 1985 rape of a 15-year-old Clearwater girl. For reasons unclear Tuesday, it ran concurrently with the 10-year Hillsborough sentence.

These days, DNA evidence likely could have helped authorities make their case. Helms also would have faced stiffer prison penalties because of his already lengthy criminal history.

But, Peters said, "he is done with his criminal case. We can't go back and change anything."

In July 2006, doctors deemed Helms unfit to rejoin society. Peters wouldn't say what has changed one year later except to cite his progress in treatment.

Helms likely earned his release by accepting responsibility for his past and showing openness to facing his demons, said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Sexual Disorders Clinic at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Doctors also take into account the safeguards that would be available to tracking him in the community, such as the probation Helms still must serve.

Berlin said if the Jimmy Ryce Act is truly about treatment and not imprisonment, the public should expect some people to be successful enough to rejoin the community.

"If we can have people who have undergone treatment come back as safe and productive citizens," he said, "that is win-win."

Times researchers John Martin and Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report. Colleen Jenkins can be reached at cjenkins@sptimes.com or 813 226-3337.

Fast Facts:

Jimmy Ryce Act

The state's Jimmy Ryce Act took effect in January 1999. Named for a 9-year-old Dade County boy who was raped and murdered, the law allows sex offenders considered too dangerous for release to be held indefinitely for treatment after their prison sentences are completed. Pinellas prosecutors have filed 76 Jimmy Ryce cases since the law was enacted. In Hillsborough, 74 have been filed.

[Last modified October 10, 2007, 01:29:54]