Judge Richard T. Moses - Wimp Judge Endangers Children

a Herald review of his 18-page decision shows the Superior Court judge knew Flavell had been arrested and convicted on a variety of sex offenses between 1996 and 2003, including masturbating in public, threatening children and brutally beating and attempting to rape a woman in Methuen. That 1996 attack took place just hours after he’d been arrested for masturbating in a department store.

Still, Moses ruled that prosecutors failed to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Flavell would reoffend if he was sprung from prison.

"25% of all sex offenders re-offend within 15 years"
..... Sarah Tofte

The serial sex fiend busted for allegedly stalking a woman in a Braintree bookstore bathroom left a trail of escalating depravity encompassing nearly a dozen incidents over seven years, including a violent attempted rape.

Judge Richard T. Moses knew twisted sex freak David Flavell’s history of arrests from New Hampshire to Fairhaven when he set free the Level 3 offender in 2006, ruling he posed no danger to the public, according to court filings obtained by the Herald.

In Moses’ written decision, he noted that five medical experts consulted to help decide whether to civilly commit Flavell as a sexually dangerous person agreed that he was not a threat.

“It really is Russian roulette when you make these decisions. And in this case, there happened to be a bullet in the chamber,” said Dr. Marc Whaley, a Cape Cod psychiatrist who has evaluated sex offenders facing civil commitment.

Flavell remained held yesterday on $10,000 cash bail for allegedly ambushing a Holbrook woman in the ladies room of the Borders bookstore in Braintree Jan. 29. He carried a backpack later found to contain a ski mask, gloves and duct tape.

On Wednesday, Flavell will be arraigned in Boston on charges last year that he used pay phones on the Esplanade and at Massachusetts General Hospital to place “several lewd and disturbing” calls to a national center that helps missing and exploited children.

The sexually graphic alleged calls and the Borders incident happened subsequent to Moses’ order.

But a Herald review of his 18-page decision shows the Superior Court judge knew Flavell had been arrested and convicted on a variety of sex offenses between 1996 and 2003, including masturbating in public, threatening children and brutally beating and attempting to rape a woman in Methuen. That 1996 attack took place just hours after he’d been arrested for masturbating in a department store.

Still, Moses ruled that prosecutors failed to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Flavell would reoffend if he was sprung from prison.

Yesterday, the woman Flavell attempted to rape said she couldn’t believe her attacker was not behind bars all these years.

“He obviously keeps doing the same thing over and over again. There’s something really wrong with this man,” she said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Moses came under fire earlier this month after it was revealed that Corey Saunders, 26, another registered Level 3 sex offender the judge refused to civilly commit in 2006, was arrested for allegedly raping a 6-year-old boy in a New Bedford library.

In the Flavell case, Moses acknowledged that the pervert was an exhibitionist, but his demented acts did “not rise to the level of conduct which would make him a menace to the health and safety of others.”

Moses declined comment. But Whaley, who agrees with the judge’s decision, said exhibitionists like Flavell generally repeat the same obsessive behavior without necessarily moving up to physical attacks.

“The big problem with all of this is predicting future behavior,” Whaley said of civil commitments.

Defense attorney Edward P. Ryan Jr., whose clientele has included sex offenders and who is now chairman of the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Task Force on Fair and Impartial Courts, also agreed with Moses’ decision.

“The tragedy of these high-profile cases is, somebody gets skewered because they operated in good faith when the evidence wasn’t there,” Ryan said. “And in this case, it just wasn’t there.”

13% of all new sex crimes are committed by
registered sex offenders.
Currently registered sex offenders are
one fifth of one percent of the population


0.2% of the population is committing 13%
of all NEW sex crimes
per Sarah Tofte