They Served Their Time for Sex Crimes. The State Won’t Let Them Go.
Great article in the NY Times today about civil commitment. Here’s an excerpt:
In 1996, Rodney Roberts was working two jobs, one as a paralegal and another as a salesman in a men’s store, and living in a Montclair, N.J., apartment with his young son, when a teenager was sexually assaulted in Newark.
Seventeen days later, officers with the East Orange Police Department arrested Mr. Roberts, who, as a younger man, had been convicted of conspiracy to commit rape.
They held him for a more than a month after investigators with the Newark Police Department added his mug shot to a lineup and asked the teenager whether she recognized any of the men as her attacker. She picked Mr. Roberts out of the lineup, they said.
Prosecutors charged him with rape and kidnapping. His public defender advised him to plead guilty to kidnapping, saying he would serve less prison time than if he went to trial for both crimes and was found guilty. Mr. Roberts followed the advice, and the sex assault charge was dropped. He received seven years in prison.
Still, when asked, he maintained his innocence, and the parole board denied him early release in 1998, 2000 and 2003, saying he refused to take responsibility for the crime.
By 2004, he was about to be reunited with his family when the attorney general’s office petitioned to have him committed to the Special Treatment Unit. Records show that the doctor who evaluated him determined that he did not have any particular urge to commit sexual assault. But the doctor recommended him for the unit anyway, saying he was likely to reoffend because of his arrogance and refusal to accept responsibility for his crime.
Mr. Roberts spent the next 10 years at the center, receiving no treatment, he said. Still, once a year, a panel evaluated him and ruled that he was too dangerous to go free.
Then a DNA test of evidence in his case showed that Mr. Roberts had never committed the rape in the first place. In 2014, New Jersey set aside the finding that he was a sexually violent predator and released him from the unit.
Mr. Roberts sued the state the following year for the wrongful conviction and commitment. More than a decade later, his case is still pending.
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I can’t access the article behind the paywall.
I found this article from 4/8/25
https://www.nj.com/news/2014/04/newark_man_freed_after_17_years_for_a_rape_he_says_he_did_not_commit.html
Is it consistent with the article I cannot view?
They knew he was innocent and an accountable man frees the state of any wrongdoing.
Let him sit long enough and we will break him or so they thought
I root the case is found in his favor, but this is the problem with the legal system and their due process…they can hold up the case for a decade now with no resolution in sight because they know they are wrong. This needs some top level oversight to see it is concluded. Ben Crump needs to be the atty on record for him and start sending out lawsuit notifications to all parties involved, not just the state, but the prosecution, investigators, etc. Scorched earth on this gent’s behalf.
The State never wants to be held accountable. Heck, not a single politician, Leo, judge, lawyer, official, etc. ever wants to be held accountable, for their stupid actions. This is why the US is literally a joke.
wow…
God, Please! Please destroy the registry laws of so many states that are nothing more than a life sentence for even those who have never touched or harmed anyone! Bring sanity to this process, in Jesus Name. 🙏
Amen!
Amen!!!!!!!!
God, please continue to protect the victims! Especially the children who are brave enough to point out their abusers. Please allow justice to continue to be served 🙏🏽 🙏🏽