PORT ORCHARD — Washington state’s attorney general has filed a petition in Kitsap County Superior Court to civilly commit a Port Orchard-area man convicted of statutory rape and attempted statutory rape.

Ivan Hendricks, 60, was convicted of those first-degree charges in 1987 in Kitsap County.

Prior to his scheduled release for these offenses, the attorney general’s office petitioned to have Hendricks committed as a sexually violent predator. A judge found probable cause to detain him pending a trial on the state’s petition.

Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator law allows the state attorney general’s office to petition for the civil commitment of violent sex offenders who, because of a mental abnormality and/or personality disorder, are proven likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if released.

The civil commitment petition consists of allegations that have not yet been proven in a court of law.

— edited by Bob Smith