Judge delays rapist's release
Sunday, June 11, 2000
By Betsy Calvert
© 2000 SPRINGFIELD UNION-NEWS

GREENFIELD — Convicted rapist Ernest M. McGregor thought he was getting out of prison Friday, but a judge ordered him to remain confined at the Treatment Center for the Sexually Dangerous in Bridgewater until the state holds a civil commitment hearing.

At a hearing in Franklin Superior Court, Judge Lawrence Wernick sided with the state's request for temporary confinement. However, he also criticized the state for apparently keeping McGregor in the dark about this latest legal battle until the day of his scheduled release.

Using a 1999 state law aimed at sex offenders, Assistant District Attorney Renee Steese argued the 42-year-old former Easthampton man should not be freed until the state can determine whether he is a threat to society.

McGregor violently and repeatedly raped a 14-year-old girl in Easthampton one night in 1989. While in prison, he was convicted of raping another inmate. He has also served time for rape in New York state.

"The defendant fits to a 'T' the definition of sexually dangerous person," Steese said. "The release of an unsupervised sexual predator with four rape convictions absolutely poses a threat to the community."

The new sex offender commitment law requires that the state show that a person to be committed has a history of sex crimes combined with a mental abnormality making them likely to commit those crimes again. In her arguments, Steese cited state psychiatric experts who described McGregor as suffering from depression, anti-social personality disorder, and schizophrenic tendencies.

Across the state, the civil commitment law is currently in limbo, because the state's Supreme Judicial Court is reviewing it. Opponents have said it is unconstitutional because it effectively imprisons people after they have served their time.

McGregor is the first case of civil commitment for sexual dangerousness in Hampshire County since the law was enacted last September.

Adding fuel to the abnormal personality argument, Steese cited McGregor's attempted suicide by hanging in prison. She also described how he drove a nail into his genitals while in prison to prove he is no longer a sexual threat. When Wernick asked if McGregor was still sexually functional, Steese responded that sex crimes do not require sexual function.

McGregor had not fully participated in sex offender treatment programs at the Bridgewater prison center, Steese said — another indicator that he is a threat for repeated sex crimes.

Finally, she said his ex-wife lives in fear of his release.

McGregor's lawyer, John W. Drake, argued that McGregor could be safely released before the hearing by taking basic measures, including daily checks with probation, weekly counseling sessions and regular checks for continued psychiatric medication.

While the district attorney's office had prepared an extensive case against McGregor, Drake told the judge that he had been assigned to the case less than 24 hours earlier.

Wernick said: "It is absolutely unfair . . . for the defendant to find himself in a courtroom on the day he is to expected to be released, without any information."

In a general instruction to the state, Wernick said that McGregor must not be treated as a sexually dangerous person while he awaits his next hearing, because he has not been determined as such.

The civil commitment hearing has been scheduled for June 27.