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Rupa Shenoy
ST. PAUL, Minn.

State official backs release of man from sex offender program

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Minnesota Human Services commissioner Lucinda Jesson is supporting a recommendation by a DHS special review board that 58-year-old Thomas Duvall be released from the state sex offender program.

He's the third person Jesson has supported for release.

In late July, Jesson said she would not oppose the release of 46-year-old Kirk Fugelseth. Both Duvall and Fugelseth were convicted of criminal sexual conduct. The two men, if released, would be subject to GPS monitoring, covert surveillance, and frequent in-person visits from state staff, Jesson said. Their cases now go before a state Supreme Court appeals panel.

Duval and Fugelseth would be placed in the same halfway house as the first offender successfully released, Clarence Opheim.

In a letter to Karen Asphaug, chief judge of a judicial appeal panel, dated Sept. 3, Jesson Duvall had previously petitioned for discharge in 2010, but withdrew that petition last year after an outside expert said he had unresolved issues. Jesson said those issues have now been resolved through treatment.

Jesson said Duvall's discharge plan includes 27 conditions to protect the public and his former victims.

The 18-year-old program detains offenders indefinitely after they've served their prison sentences because county judges thought they were at high risk to reoffend. The program currently holds about 680 people.

A class action suit set to go before a federal judge in November claims the Minnesota sex offender program is unconstitutional because so few people have been released.