Convicted Rapist Headed to Rochester Area After Discharge From Sex Offender Program
Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - One of the few people to ever be discharged from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program will be moving to the Rochester area next month.
The Olmsted County Sheriff’s Department says 68-year-old Benjamin Gissendanner has been provisionally released from the sex offender program and is being placed in a residential facility in Rock Dell Township near Byron. The Sheriff’s Department has scheduled a community notification meeting concerning his release next Tuesday evening at East Saint Olaf Lutheran Church in rural Byron.
Gissendanner was committed to the Sex Offender Program as a sexually dangerous person after he completed his prison sentence for raping a woman after he broke into her St. Paul home in the early 1980s. He was also convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in New York in 1970.
Gissendanner is only the fourth offender to ever be released from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program, which was recently declared unconstitutional by a federal judge. He met yesterday with top state officials, including Governor Mark Dayton, to explore possible options for reforming the system to fix the constitutional problems.
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