Following the advice of mental health evaluators, a judge has declined to release from state control a serial rapist who roamed southeast Ocala in the mid-1980s.
Frank Kash, 59, waived his appearance at a Tuesday hearing, during which Assistant Public Defender Susan Bailey said she had no evidence to contradict the evaluation of her client.
Kash pleaded guilty to sexual battery, robbery with a deadly weapon, burglary and two counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in connection to a rape case in February 1985. His prison term in that case ended in 2003.
The Jimmy Ryce Act, enacted in 1999, states that before inmates with histories of sex offenses are released from prison they are evaluated to determine the level of risk for re-offense. Sometimes the inmates can be subject to civil proceedings and commitment to a facility for treatment.
Jimmy Ryce was a 9-year-old South Florida boy who was kidnapped, raped, murdered and dismembered in 1995 by Juan Carlos Chavez, who died by lethal injection in 2014. In the aftermath of the boy’s death, his family successfully lobbied for tighter restrictions on sexual offenders.
In 2003, prosecutors were seeking to commit Kash under the Jimmy Ryce Act. Before any proceeding took place, Kash stipulated, against his attorney’s advice, that he be committed to the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia indefinitely.
According to Bailey, her client is currently in the custody of the Department of Corrections, not the commitment center.
State prison records show Kash began serving a five-year prison sentence for aggravated assault in June 2012.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Circuit Judge Jonathan Ohlman told the attorneys to make arrangements to have Kash re-evaluated again next year, as required by law.
Back in 1985, part of Kash’s plea agreement called for him to speak with law enforcement about other sexual assaults in the area. Kash, dubbed the “Southeast Rapist” by law enforcement, confessed to seven other rapes between February 1984 and March 1985 and 20 auto burglaries in about the same period of time. He was linked to four other rapes - which he did not confess to - by hair sample comparisons.
Kash was never prosecuted for any of the other rape cases because, according to the State Attorney’s Office, during the 1980s technology was far less advanced than today and not enough evidence existed for those cases to proceed to trial. ..Source.. by April Warren
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