New law could put sex offender on the streets

In 1987 a 9-year-old girl was snatched off her bike in broad daylight and molested in an alley behind a vacant donut shop.

A mildly mentally disabled Brooklyn Park man eventually confessed to police, re-enacted the abuse for detectives and was charged with various sex crimes - only to be found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a state hospital.

For 21 years Robert William Hoffman has lived at the Rosewood Center in Owings Mill, awaiting his trial and continuing to talk about his love of children.

But now a new law passed in 2006 could put the 56-year-old man back on the streets, to the chagrin of prosecutors...