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Little-known NY law keeps worst sex offenders off the streets and out of sight - possibly forever
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Raymond Younis at time of arrest
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The divorced father befriended single mothers and shuttled their sons, ages 6 to 13, to and from school in the village of Phoenix. He babysat them and listened to their problems.
But Younis wasn't the father figure he appeared to be. Three times in 1984, he handcuffed a 10-year-old boy in his bedroom, stripped him naked and took photographs. For that, Younis spent two years in jail.
A decade later, Younis struck again. When authorities raided his apartment in 1997, they found videos of up to 30 young boys in various stages of undress and a stolen .38-caliber gun he used to threaten victims.
The laundromat worker attracted infamy as one of the most prolific sex offenders in Central New York history. He did his time in state prison, but state officials did not want him to go free another time.
So they turned to a little-known New York state weapon called "civil confinement," an indefinite legal purgatory that has elements of bonus prison time and mandatory mental health care.
Read more.
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Central New York Psychiatric Center, in Marcy, Oneida County, where civil confinement sex offenders are held.
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