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	Child Rapist Wants out of Sanford Mental Hospital By Rene Stutzman Orlando Sentinel May 15, 2009 http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orl-child-rapist-free-051409,0,1522398.story SANFORD - Kareem Merthie, 26, has been locked up for nine years because he raped little boys in his father's church, one of the largest black congregations in Sanford. Today, Merthie is to return to court, where a judge must decide whether to release him from a state mental hospital for violent sex offenders. Merthie wants out. He plans to move in with his uncle in Sanford, enroll in Seminole Community College and study music and business. Mental-health experts are split on whether he should be freed. All agree that he's a very different person than when he was admitted, that he's undergone intense therapy, that he's been cooperative and that there's nothing more the mental hospital can do. Tampa psychologist Michael Gamache, a state witness, filed a report in March, saying that Merthie had admitted victimizing 20 children, both boys and girls. "Due to the sheer volume of Mr. Merthie's prior sexual acts, I believe he remains a high risk or a danger to reoffend" but not more so than "the average sex offender," Gamache wrote. It's not clear what Dr. Douglas Shadle, a defense expert from Punta Gorda, will say today. Merthie is a "Jimmy Ryce" offender. That's the name given to sex offenders who served their time but are then locked up in a state mental hospital in Arcadia because state experts say they are still dangerous. Merthie preyed on children as young as 4, according to court records. He raped many of them at his father's church, New Word Life Center in Sanford. In three lawsuits, victims' families alleged that Merthie took them to the bathroom or up a set of stairs to a dark, remote part of the church. According to court records, the rapes began around 1992. Law enforcement did not get involved until 1998, when one of the victim's mothers went to Sanford police. Merthie, then age 16, was arrested in 1999. He was locked up at a juvenile facility in 2000 several months after pleading no contest to victimizing two boys. That did not end the abuse. While in a Jacksonville facility for underage sex offenders, Merthie sexually abused a 15-year-old boy, according to court records. At a hearing in September, a state case worker described Merthie as a model resident. That's similar to his record at Seminole High School, where he was a standout student, played basketball, was on the track team, sang in choir and served on student council. Merthie has completed the treatment program at the state hospital and has received its maximum benefit, caseworker Katja Haase told Circuit Judge O.H. Eaton Jr. at that September hearing. She would not say, though, whether she thought he was safe to release. Rene Stutzman can be reached at rstutzman@orlandosentinel.com of 407-650-6394.
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