Silver Lake Daily Newsletter.com

Lack of Remorse--Forshey Refused Sex Offender Treatment:

Court shoots down man’s sex
offender status appeal; raped
a child and elderly woman

Steven Forshey

It seems the court cases involving a man who was sentenced earlier this month to his third prison term were not over.

On Friday, a state appeals court issued a ruling in an appeal made by Steven Forshey, a twice-convicted rapist who was sentenced to five years in prison recently for burglarizing a house and stealing items at knifepoint.

Forshey, 44, was released to parole in 2019 after serving a 20-year prison term for breaking into a 79-year-old woman’s house and raping her. He previously served prison time in Florida for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl.

Forshey, upon release, was determined by a judge to be a Level 3, sexually violent offender on the state Sex Offender Registry. That’s the most severe level of offender.

If ever there was a person deserving of such a label, it was Forshey, who law enforcement officials called one of the most vile criminals they had ever come across.

Forshey, however, thought his adjudication as a Level 3 offender was unfair and he appealed. He contends that Orleans County Court “erred in refusing to grant him a downward departure,” according to a ruling Friday by the state Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

Forshey claims that because he was such a model prisoner that he should have been given credit. He told the court he had “high scores in educational and vocational programs.”

The court did note that Forshey did well in such programs and “was assessed zero points for conduct while confined despite having an extensive history of disciplinary infractions.”

However, the court pointed out the Forshey refused to participate in one program that would have gone a long way to lowering his Level 3 determination: Sex offender treatment.

“Defendant did not meet his burden of establishing by a preponderance of the evidence that he had any response, let alone an exceptional response, to treatment,” the court wrote in its unanimous decision to reject Forshey’s claim. “Rather, it was undisputed that he refused to participate in the sex offender counseling and treatment program.”

Not that the ruling matters much for now. Forshey will be in state prison for at least four years.