WOMAN IS FIRST IN MISSOURI TO BE TRIED UNDER 1998 SEXUAL PREDATOR LAW

PFMLIT CIVIL CONFINEMENT COMMITTMENT, FEMALE SEX OFFENDERS AND OTHERS, General

Angela Coffel, 22, would be the first woman in Missouri committed to a mental hospital under the state's 1998 sexual predator law.  Prosecutors call her a sexually violent predator who should be committed indefinitely because she's a danger to society. Coffel was sentenced in 1996 to five years in prison after pleading guilty to performing oral sex on two boys, aged 11 and 14.  Her attorney, Lyn Ruess contends that Coffel, who was 17 at the time, was drunk and obliging the boys' request in a game of Truth or Dare.