Whatcom County sex offender will be detained at McNeil Island pending commitment trial
A Whatcom County man who was set to be released from prison last week will instead be held at a corrections facility for sex offenders as he awaits trial on a civil commitment that could keep him jailed indefinitely.
Whatcom County Superior Court Judge Robert Olson ruled Monday that Jake Unick, who was convicted in 2014 on two counts of kidnapping, remained a threat to the public and should be held until he faces trial on the civil commitment.
A date wasn’t set for that hearing, but Olson said it likely would be next year.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a petition last week asking for Unick to be held at the McNeil Island Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, which houses “sexually violent predators” after their prison terms have ended.
A psychological exam found that “Mr. Unick suffers from a mental abnormality and a personality disorder and that each of those individually or together causes Mr. Unick to be more likely than not to commit a sexually predatory offense if he is not confined to a secure facility such as the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island,” state’s attorney Nathan Olson told the court.
Unick, 38, spent 10 years in prison for trying to grab two girls and one woman off the street and taking a 2-year-old girl from the Fred Meyer grocery store on West Bakerview Road in 2013.
In a 10-minute hearing Monday at the Whatcom County Courthouse, Olson found that there was enough probable cause for Unick to face a civil commitment trial.
Washington was the first state to allow such involuntary civil commitments of sex offenders who have served criminal sentences, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld their constitutionality.
McNeil Island is southwest of Tacoma in the southern Puget Sound.
This story was originally published September 9, 2024 at 1:56 PM.
