Portrait of a Civil Commitment

Though his diagnoses haven't changed and the laws remain the same, Foley was civilly committed last month, even though he was charged with no new crimes after he was released from prison little more than a year ago. Foley, it seems, was one of the first men targeted with the newfound vigor for civil commitment after Alfonso Rodriguez was charged for kidnapping Dru Sjodin.

Foley's case underscores just how squeamish public officials have become since Rodriguez's visage was popping up on cable news channels. While nobody wants to see another high profile abduction case like that of Dru Sjodin or Erika Dalquist, the avalanche of publicity and political grandstanding surrounding sex offenders has left the issue of what to do with them as murky as ever.

The tightening system that civilly commits sex offenders is either finally putting public safety at the forefront or it is depriving individuals of liberties they deserve, depending on who's talking. Either way, more men face the possibility of being committed to a sex offender treatment program that has not met a lot of success.

"It's a 180-degree turn," explains Foley's attorney James Dahlquist. "We were in a period [pre-Rodriguez] when the DOC was talking about studies that showed better results in community-based settings."

That era is close to being over. The Department of Corrections (DOC) quit its practice of passing along recommendations for commitments. Instead, all "level 3" offenders, those with the highest chance to re-offend, are referred to county attorneys, and it is up to them to find a psychologist's recommendation for or against commitment. Already this year, the state Attorney General's Office, which helps rural county attorneys, has assisted with 10 petitions for commitments, which is just one less than the number of petitions it assisted with all of last year.

Had it not been for Rodriguez's arrest and the DOC's abdication of its role of referring men for commitment, some wonder if Foley would have been ordered to a state hospital for sexual offender treatment.

In March of 2003 and later that year in November, two different DOC psychologists reviewed Foley's file for a commitment recommendation and both concluded that Foley should not be committed. The second DOC psychologist, Dr. Penny Zwecker, reasoned that Foley's history was not the type of history typical of an offender who met the commitment criteria.

Days after it was reported that Sjodin's blood was found in Rodriguez's car, and a month after Zwecker recommended against commitment, Foley's DOC release agent asked for a reassessment for commitment. Around December, an AG-endorsed psychologist, Dr. James Alsdurf, reviewed the same assessment scores of Foley. The psychologist added notes about Foley's refusal to accept responsibility for his actions and the fact pornographic videos were found in his apartment while he was on supervised release. Alsdurf then recommended Foley for committal.

Foley certainly has a checkered past that is cause for concern. His first conviction for a sexual crime dates back to that 1977 rape in Maine. To find distance from that past, in 1992, Foley moved to Buffalo Lake, a town 80 miles west of the Twin Cities in Renville County. He found a job working as cooler man for Minnesota Beef Industries, and he spent his free time watching movies. But soon Foley was being accused of offering girls cash for their virginity and buying alcohol for minors in exchange for letting him take pictures of them. In 1997, Foley was charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old while she was passed out in his apartment. Foley denies committing the offense, but he was convicted of fourth-degree sexual conduct, the least severe felony-level sex crime.

Four years later, in 2001, Foley was convicted again of fourth-degree sexual conduct. According to court documents, Foley said he thought the 13-year-old girl was 18 and that she kissed him of her own free will. He was sentenced to 30 months.

In March 2003, Foley was released from prison and moved to Renville, population 1,300, which is on the other side of the county from his previous home. He is the first and only level 3 to live in Renville County. Foley spent much of his time watching historic documentaries, and he was supposed to be looking for a job. While under supervised release, he was sent back to prison twice, for having porn and failing to complete sex offender treatment.