Carl E. Kaminski - Violent Sexual Predator

WHITEHALL, Wis. — A man convicted of second-degree sexual assault of a child in 1996 has been found by a jury to be a sexually violent person, resulting in his indefinite commitment for treatment.

Carl E. Kaminski, 38, formerly of Blair, Wis., has already begun the appeals process in response to the verdict last Thursday in Trempealeau County Circuit Court, said public defender Albert Wabaunsee, who represented him, when contacted Monday night.

Kaminski had been scheduled for release from the Stanley Correctional Institution last May 24, but the Department of Justice petitioned to have him civilly committed under the state’s sexual predator law.

State lawyers argued that he has mental conditions predisposing him to engage in acts of sexual violence, and that his mental disorders make him likely to do so, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in announcing the verdict.

Under the law, Kaminski can be committed until he is determined to no longer be a sexually violent person, Van Hollen noted. He said Kaminski will be kept at a secure treatment facility.

Kaminski pleaded guilty March 5, 1996, to second-degree sexual assault of a child in Trempealeau County, according to computerized state court records.

He was accused in January 1999 of third-degree sexual assault in Eau Claire County and his probation was revoked, but the case eventually was dismissed, Wabaunsee said. In 2003, Kaminski was accused in Chippewa County of second-degree sexual assault of a child, and his parole was revoked, but he was acquitted in a jury trial in 2004.

Both those cases were cited by the state during last week’s trial to determine if Kaminski should be committed, said Wabaunsee, who questioned the way the commitment law is being enforced.

“They are stretching the term ’sexually violent person’ to the extreme, I believe,” he said.

“They are keeping people in for 10 and 12 years while they’re ‘being treated,’ and they’re not releasing anybody,” he said. “Or if they’re being approved for release there’s no place for them to live because they’ve been branded a sexual predator.”