He has spent the past four months trying to secure the services of a retired probation officer who would keep track of offenders.

The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers recommends a "gradual return to the community'' that includes treatment once offenders are released to reduce the risk of repeat offenses.

Yet the Florida Legislature denied a 2001 request by the Department of Children & Families for $970,000 to establish a release program that would ensure offenders continue treatment while tracking them with satellite technology.

Among those set free:

	Newsome

• Alonzo Newsome, 38,who was released from the center in January 2001 after being convicted of forcing a 16-year-old boy to undress before performing oral sex on him. After his release, Newsome moved to Miami-Dade County, where less than six months later he lured another boy -- this time a 15-year-old -- into his car and forced him to undress before sodomizing him.

	Parsons

• John Wayne Parsons, who spent six years in prison for taking pornographic pictures of a 15-year-old and for molesting a 9-year-old. He was sent to the state's treatment center in 2001 and was released without any treatment in July 2002. Three months later, he was caught reaching into the pants and fondling a 5-year-old Hillsborough County girl.

	Adams

• Eric Adams, who spent two years at the treatment center after being convicted twice for lewd assault and lewd acts against children in 1993 and 1995. He absconded from Florida's registry six months after his release and was later convicted in Marion of lewd exhibition in 2003.

• Kenneth Johnson, who was arrested in October on 22 counts of sexual battery against two boys, ages 11 and 16. He spent 16 years in prison for sexually abusing two kids and nearly three years inside the treatment center before being released in May 2003.

A STORY OF FAILURE
ON THE RUN TO AND FROM FLORIDA

‘‘Catfish'' Mitchell provides a dramatic example of the state's failures.

His story of abuse and flights from the law stretches back more than 20 years.

He has four convictions, but a sexual autobiography he wrote during his stay at the Florida Civil Commitment Center describes more than 60 offenses dating back to the 1970s, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Indianapolis, which reviewed the document.

His first brush with the law was in 1979 in Massachusetts, where he was arrested and charged with raping a 9-year-old girl. But before his trial in 1981, he fled to West Palm Beach.

Two years later, still on the run from the law in Massachusetts, he was arrested and charged with fondling a 7-year-old girl in West Palm Beach.