Ralph Hawker - Repeat Sex Offender - Pedophile Blame Gamer held in Civil Commitment

As the hearing came to a close, he took his lawyer's advice and told the judge he would not testify on his own behalf.

Then he leaned over and whispered to Berry. Because he is almost deaf, his words were audible to everyone in the courtroom: "If I don't go home, it's your fault."

He's the state's oldest living sexually violent predator, but who is the real Ralph Hawker?

To some, he's an infirm World War II veteran who will turn 90 in September and uses a wheelchair because of the effects of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, thyroid and heart disease.

To others, he is a pedophile who, despite his age, would continue to prey on young boys if given the opportunity.

"I don't think anybody's concerned about [Hawker] putting on his Nikes and running down the street chasing kids," Palm Beach Circuit Judge Chuck Burton said at a court hearing May 18 to decide whether the convicted pedophile should be released from a civil commitment center where he has been locked up since 2000.

"But he's stubborn as hell," Burton said. "What do you do with somebody with an attitude like that?"

You leave him in Arcadia's Florida Civil Commitment Center, Burton ruled Thursday.

"If he were in the company of a young teenage boy whom he deemed to be consenting to sexual activity, this Court has no doubt that Hawker would offer sexual gratification to the boy," Burton wrote in his order. "He sees nothing wrong with it as long as the child had participated in some type of sexual activity previously."

In 1988, Hawker was sentenced to 10 years of probation for molesting two pre-teen boys, one of them a relative.

Just before the sentence ended, Hawker violated the terms of his probation by being in the company of an unsupervised minor. He was imprisoned.

As his 2000 release date approached, the state began proceedings to have Hawker committed under Florida's Jimmy Ryce Act. Since 1999, the Ryce Act has allowed the indefinite civil commitment of sex offenders after they have completed their prison terms.

In 2005, a Palm Beach County jury found Hawker to be a sexually violent predator — the required designation to commit someone to the center. He has been locked up there since then.

He is one of 677 residents at the center, according to state Department of Children & Families. He is the oldest resident, one of 25 men age 70 or older.

In a written statement to the Sun Sentinel, a facility spokesman said the center can accommodate its elderly residents, who are scattered among the general population.

Officials at the facility are considering developing a 20-bed unit for elderly residents with medical challenges, a criterion Hawker meets.

Assistant Public Defender Scott Berry and a Punta Gorda psychiatrist told the judge that although Hawker still might think sex between men and "consenting" young boys is acceptable, he is no longer physically able to act on his urges.

"A person in Mr. Hawker's state should already be dead," Berry argued, citing his client's health problems.

However, prosecutor Robert Jaegers and a forensic psychologist disagreed. They said Hawker was cited with performing oral sex on another man in 2006.

According to testimony, Hawker has refused any sex offender treatment in the nine years he has been at the facility.

"He seems to think he should get a pass on all this behavior because he's old," psychologist Amy Swan testified.

Hawker wanted to move in with friends in South Carolina.

As the hearing came to a close, he took his lawyer's advice and told the judge he would not testify on his own behalf.

Then he leaned over and whispered to Berry. Because he is almost deaf, his words were audible to everyone in the courtroom: "If I don't go home, it's your fault."

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