Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline on Friday vowed to
go to court to have convicted child molester Robert
Larson, a longtime Catholic priest in the Wichita
Diocese, designated a sexual predator when he is
released from state prison in March.
But to get what
he wants, Kline will have to win a legal argument that
a plea agreement protecting Larson from just such a
move is invalid. Sexual predators are committed to a
state institution indefinitely for treatment under
terms of the Kansas Violent Predator Act.
"I consider him a predator," Kline said of Larson,
"and we're doing all we can to keep him off the
streets."
Larson, 76, pleaded guilty in 2001 in Harvey County
District Court to abusing three altar boys and a
19-year-old man while he was pastor of St. Mary's
Catholic Church in Newton in the 1980s. He will have
served five years in prison -- the longest term
possible under the state laws in place at the time of
the crimes -- when he is released from Lansing on
March 20.
One of the terms of the plea agreement under which
Larson admitted guilt is that the state would not seek
Larson's commitment under the Violent Predator Act.
That agreement was signed by then-Harvey County
Attorney Matt Treaster and
Dan Monnat, Larson's defense lawyer.
The state "would be breaking the promise it made to
Larson to get him to give up his constitutional right
to a jury trial to now seek his commitment as a sex
predator," Monnat
said.
"Robert Larson was not a sexual predator at the
time the state of Kansas made its written promise not
to claim he was," Monnat
said. "He is not a sexual predator now. The state must
honor its written agreements and the facts."
But Kline said the power to make such an agreement
"rests in my office," not that of a county attorney.
As a result, he said, he does not feel bound by the
plea agreement.
"We are going to file notice with the court.... We
intend to have him classified as a predator and
confined in Larned," Kline said, referring to the
sexual predator treatment program at Larned State
Hospital.
One of the altar boys Larson admitted molesting,
Paul Schwartz, said he felt confused and angry after
being notified by a Kansas Department of Corrections
official that Larson is not considered a sexual
predator.
"The nightmares come back of the abuse. The anxiety
attacks come back," said Schwartz, who was 13 when
Larson began fondling him. "I would love to sit there
and ask them one simple question: 'Would you allow
Robert Larson unmonitored access to your children?' "
A psychologist has evaluated Larson,
Monnat said, and does
not consider him a threat. Schwartz said he was told
that the conclusion was based on Larson's mental
condition and age.
But that offers no peace to Schwartz or David
Clohessy, executive director of the Survivors Network
of those Abused by Priests, a national victims
advocacy group.
"It's terribly depressing that people believe
somehow that advancing age cures pedophilia," Clohessy
said, adding, "It honestly raises the question 'Just
how obviously, incorrigibly twisted must you be to
qualify for this distinction if someone like Larson
doesn't qualify?' "
Authorities in Sedgwick and Harvey counties
launched criminal investigations into Larson after The
Eagle published a story in August 2000 in which
several former altar boys of Larson said he had
molested them. Larson served as a priest in the
Wichita Diocese for 30 years before being removed from
the pulpit in Newton in 1988.
Newton police Detective T. Walton said Friday that
more than 50 former altar boys filed criminal
complaints in Wichita and Newton, but the statute of
limitations had run out on most of the allegations.
