Feb 2, 2007 11:53 pm US/Eastern
Penn Student Heads Back To Bucks County Jail
by Karen Adams
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
A convicted sex offender is now banned from leaving a Bucks County jail to attend grad school classes.
He was allowed to commute back and forth for months before the shocked mother of the boy he admitted to molesting tipped-off authorities.
Kurt Mitman's attorney plans to appeal the decision Friday. But for now he must wait until he gets out of prison before resuming classes at the University of Pennsylvania.
Officers escorted jailed child molester Kurt Mitman back to prison after a judge revoked his academic release, saying the 25 year-old's attorney did not have a secure enough plan to monitor him while away from jail.
The decision ends Mitman's long 12 hour day away from prison to attend graduate classes at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I looked on the internet and I figured out that he was attending classes at the University of Pennsylvania and I couldn't believe it," said the victim's mother.
Mitman's victim's mother notified the Bucks County District Attorney's office after learning her son's attacker was being allowed to attend classes alone at the University of Pennsylvania. It brought about the hearing in which she spoke.
"It's an extremely rotten precedent to allow the mother of the victim to come in and testify that she objects to it," said Richard Fink, Mitman's Attorney.
"She certainly has rights to be heard, whether it's at a parole hearing, whether it be at any future hearings in this matter," said Jennifer Schorn, Bucks County D.A. Office.
Mitman was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison in 2005 after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 14 year-old boy he met at summer camp for gifted students. His attorney says since then, Mitman, who won a prestigious scholarship to Oxford University, has been doing everything right.
"A brilliant student, who's done everything that he can to affect change in his life has to sit in a cell for a year," said Fink.
"I don't think it'll ever be wrong time. I don't think the defendant will give up trying to get out of prison," said the victim's mother.
Mitman has already served one and a half years of his prison sentence. He's eligible for parole in September.
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