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The Honolulu Advertiser
Updated at 3:45 p.m., Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Rape suspect at UH dorms withdraws request for release to psychiatric center

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Mark Heath

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Following his indictment yesterday on a new sex assault charge, former Schofield Barracks soldier Mark Heath today withdrew a motion that he be released to a psychiatric center while awaiting sentencing for molesting a University of Hawai'i student in her dorm room.

Heath, 21, pleaded guilty in May to third-degree sex assault, admitting he entered her Hale Mokihana room on Aug. 19, 2007, and tried to cut off her underwear with scissors while she slept.

He also admitted entering two other women's dorm rooms in November and stealing panties, a bra and two iPods.

This month, Heath's lawyer, Dean K. Young, filed a motion to allow Heath to enter the Po'ialani treatment facility in Kailua for intensive, supervised psychosocial treatment while he awaits sentencing in the UH case.

Young withdrew that motion after Heath was indicted yesterday on new charges that he sexually assaulted a Waikiki woman in her Ala Wai Boulevard condominium in April 2007.

The charges were based on a match of DNA evidence collected in that with a DNA sample taken from Heath after his guilty plea in the UH case, according to the prosecutor's office.

Heath had been in custody because he couldn't post $250,000 bail. Circuit Judge Derrick Chan yesterday increased bail to $1 million.

Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Thalia Murphy said in a court motion that she will ask that Heath be sentenced in the UH case to consecutive terms of imprisonment totaling some 40 years behind bars because "he is an untreated sex offender who poses a serious threat to the community."

Heath used "stealth, planning and deception" in the UH dorm invasions that spanned four months and caused "extreme fear for both the students' and faculty's safety," according to Murphy.

Sentencing in the UH case is scheduled Dec. 3 before Circuit Judge Dexter Del Rosario.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.