SPOKANE — Convicted rapist Kevin Coe will be locked up indefinitely as a danger to the community even though he has already served his full 25-year prison sentence, a civil court jury ruled Thursday.
Coe served his time for the lone conviction among what prosecutors described as dozens of sexual assaults in Spokane’s South Hill neighborhood, starting with a fondling case in 1966 and escalating to violent rapes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Under Washington’s civil commitment law for sex predators, the jury of eight women and four men had to decide whether Coe was mentally ill and unable to control his sexual behavior, making him likely to engage in predatory sexual violence.
The 61-year-old Coe, who has steadfastly denied committing any sexual offense, showed no emotion as the verdict was read. The case went to the Spokane County Superior Court jury Wednesday afternoon.
State experts testified about dozens of crimes in which Coe was suspected, but never charged, in pressing their case for commitment to a special facility for sexual predators on McNeil Island, near Tacoma.
“He has a 15-year history of sexual offenses against women,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said Thursday.
Coe was convicted of four rapes but appellate courts threw out three of those convictions. He completed his sentence in 2006 on the remaining conviction, but has spent the past two years at the McNeil Island facility awaiting this trial.
Television newscaster Shelly Monahan, herself a rape victim, testified against Coe and said Thursday that the decision is “a victory for all the victims.”
Monahan was among 18 rape victims whose cases were detailed for the jury, even though Coe was never charged with those crimes. Experts said those rapes fit a “signature analysis” that made them consistent with the sole rape for which Coe was convicted.
“For 29 years I have been waiting for this relief,” Monahan said outside the courtroom. “For myself and my family and for all the victims and their families, we can finally come to rest.”
Defense attorney Tim Trageser said he would appeal on grounds including that Coe could not get a fair trial in a community still scarred by the rapes.
Head juror Mattias Herzog said the jury wrestled with the question of whether Coe suffered from a mental abnormality. Coe was called as a hostile witness by prosecutors, and Herzog said the conflicts between what Coe said now and his testimony from his trials in the 1980s was striking. Coe had “zero” credibility, Herzog said.
Inmates at the McNeil facility get an annual review to determine if they can be released. But Coe would have to admit to his sex crimes and seek treatment, something he has refused to do, Bowers said.
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