### Rapist Reclassified as Sexually Violent Predator After Court Fix
Pennsylvania’s Superior Court upheld Jeffrey Best’s designation as a sexually violent predator (SVP) in a brutal 2013 Philadelphia rape case, affirming a trial court order from August 2024. The ruling came after a prior appeals court remand due to procedural errors in the initial SVP hearing. Best, convicted of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, sexual assault, terroristic threats, and possessing an instrument of crime, now faces lifelong sex offender registration under SORNA.
The nightmare began on June 2, 2013, when Best, limping from cerebral palsy, propositioned a female prostitute near Old York Road and Rising Sun Avenue for $20. What she thought was a quick transaction turned horrific: Best pressed a hard object—likely a gun—to her back, threatened to “blow her brains out,” stripped her, and dragged her behind an abandoned house. For over three hours, he forced vaginal, anal, and oral sex, leaving her scarred on her knees. She fled 20 blocks to an ambulance, where a rape kit captured his DNA—matched five years later in 2018 via a national database after Best voluntarily swabbed.
Best claimed at his 2021 bench trial it was consensual amid a payment dispute, blaming his disability. The trial court convicted him anyway, sentencing him to 10-20 years plus probation, and initially labeled him an SVP. But in 2023, the Superior Court vacated that tag because prosecutors botched the hearing by not properly admitting the Sexual Offenders Assessment Board (SOAB) report or calling expert witnesses—key under Pennsylvania’s SORNA law (42 Pa.C.S.A. § 9799.24), which requires “clear and convincing evidence” of a mental abnormality making the offender likely to prey on strangers again.
On remand, the trial court fixed it: SOAB psychologist Steven Pflugfelder testified live, detailing how Best exceeded necessary force by isolating the stranger victim, wielding a gun with “unusual cruelty,” and showing a paraphilic arousal to non-consensual acts—elevating reoffense risk. Prior unproven rape allegations reinforced a pattern, though not required. The court ruled Best’s predatory stranger attack proved the mental disorder, meeting SORNA’s high bar without needing a checklist of every factor.
Viewing evidence favorably to prosecutors, as appeals courts must, Superior Court judges found no abuse of discretion. “Clear and convincing” evidence—like the expert’s opinion and crime’s savagery—sealed it. Best’s SVP status sticks, ensuring public warnings of his threat.