Mitt Romney's Judge: Sex Offender Slipped Under Radar

The Boston Herald reports:

A judge under fire for springing a killer was the supervising prosecutor on a botched case that set a child rapist free just six months before she was put on the bench by former Gov. Mitt Romney, the Herald has learned.

Judge Kathe Tuttman, who has been criticized for releasing mom-killer Daniel Tavares, was the head of the Essex District Attorney’s Family Crimes and Sexual Assault Unit in November 2005, when the office missed two deadlines that led to the release of convicted rapist Daniel Parra. Prosecutors wanted Parra civilly committed as a sexually dangerous person, but slipups by Tuttman’s unit prompted the state’s highest court to throw out the case, records obtained by the Herald show.

In September 2006, Parra was charged by Hub cops with failing to register as a sex offender. He had served 17 years for molesting a boy and two girls in his van in Lynn in 1986, and is now believed to be living in Boston.

Romney aides did not respond to repeated requests for comment last night as to whether the former governor knew of the Parra case when he nominated Tuttman to be a Superior Court judge.

Tuttman was tapped by Romney on April 26, 2006, just six months after the state Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a petition by the DA to have Parra committed to the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater for “one day to life” as a sexual predator.

In the public sector,mistakes are just made with little consequence.