Court upholds 'predator' tag on Springs child sex offender

http://www.gazette.com/articles/springs-99549-colorado-court.html
Court upholds 'predator' tag on Springs child sex offender
May 28, 2010
A Colorado Springs man was properly tagged as a “sexually violent predator” after he pleaded guilty to molesting a neighbor’s 12-year-old son in 2006, an appeals court has ruled.

In a 15-page decision issued Thursday, the three-judge Colorado Court of Appeals panel unanimously upheld 4th Judicial District Judge Ronald G. Crowder’s order to classify Jeffrey Denton Brosh as a sexually violent predator.

Lawyers for Brosh, 37, argued there were flaws in the testing instrument, known as Sexual Offender Risk Scale, that was used to evaluate the likelihood of whether Brosh would re-offend. The appellate judges disagreed.

Elizabeth McClintock, Brosh's lawyer, said she believed the appellate opinion is incorrect and said they will appeal it to the Colorado Supreme Court.

"I think the Sex Offender Risk Scale that they're using was not developed for that purpose," she said. "It was developed to determine if someone would succeed on probation or sex offender treatment, not whether they would reoffend."

According to the ruling, the case against Brosh came to light when a neighbor picked up his 12-year-old son, who had gone over to watch movies with Brosh’s 7-year-old son and a friend.

According to court records, Brosh had asked if the boy could stay over that night and his parents said no and asked him to send the boy home. About an hour later, when the father went to retrieve the son, he said the boy was intoxicated, as was Brosh.

The father said his son then revealed that Brosh also had provided him alcohol two days earlier and performed oral sex on the child.

Later, the boy told police that in the first incident, he had found a cranberry drink laced with alcohol in the freezer and drank it, spilling some of it on his clothes. He said Brosh offered to wash to clothes and told the boy to take a shower. When he did, both Brosh and his son joined him. Later, the boy said Brosh molested him.

Brosh pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. He was sentenced in December 2008 to 4 years to life in prison.