Sex offender Richard Turay released from Special Commitment Center

Richard Turay, a violent and litigious sex offender who sued the state over his civil commitment to the Special Commitment Center, was released unconditionally Monday.

The three-time convicted rapist will be living in Tacoma, King County prosecutor’s spokesman Dan Donohoe said.

Turay, 65, has stage four liver cancer and was given one to four months to live by a state psychologist, according to King County Superior Court documents. The cancer has metastisized in his lungs and abdomen.

SCC staff members noticed Turay’s declining health, Dr. Harry Goldberg wrote June 15, adding that he is moving slower and looks jaundiced, and other residents had to help him with basic activities.

“Based on this new information, I no longer opine that Mr. Turay is likely to reoffend in a sexually violent, predatory manner,” wrote Goldberg, the state psychiatric expert. “Although his risk is not completely non-existent, his ability to carry out a rape like he has in the past has been severely compromised.”

Turay is required to register as a sex offender.

The former Des Moines resident was first involuntarily committed to the SCC on McNeil Island on Sept. 20, 1991, when the program was in Monroe, according to The News Tribune archives.

He was among the first 12 people committed to the program, which was started under the Community Protection Act of 1990, a law to treat sexually violent predators.

Turay refused treatment at the site and sued, contending his commitment was double jeopardy — that he was being incarcerated again after completing criminal sentences for rape convictions in 1972, 1979 and 1986, and an assault conviction from 1990.

“Each time he was released from prison, he again attacked a woman stranger or acquaintance,” Donohoe told The News Tribune in May 1991.

Turay’s federal lawsuit led a judge to order improvements in the treatment at the SCC in 1994.

It was required to hire competent sex offender therapists, design individual treatment plans and hire an expert in sex offender treatment to supervise treatment staff members.

“They have taken close to four years of my life and have just been warehousing me,” Turay said then. “It will go a long ways. Plus it will show these people who’s actually running the show now. It is a big relief.”

Turay moved with the center to McNeil Island in April 1998, and his lawsuit against his commitment was dismissed by the Washington State Supreme Court on Oct. 21, 1999.

Turay’s lawsuit led the same judge to fine the state $50 per resident per day in May 2000 until it improved treatment conditions. It was found to be in compliance in March 2007 and the fines were forgiven.

His suit ended in October 2009, when the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal.

Turay also refused to submit to mandatory DNA testing in 2012 until the state went to court to compel him.

This story was originally published June 21, 2016 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Sex offender Richard Turay released from Special Commitment Center."