Jonathan Perfetto, a repeat sex offender, left prison eight days ago. He's living in a Concord parking garage and spending his days at the city library. He never finished sex offender treatment in prison, and he has no one supervising him.

Perfetto's biggest fear, he says, is that he's going to reoffend. His measure of success isn't reassuring. "I haven't bought pornography yet, and I've been out (of prison) almost a week," he said yesterday.

Perfetto's case is precisely the kind prison officials try to avoid, and they often do. Most inmates do well enough in prison that they win early release and gradually return to society with the help of a parole supervisor.

But Perfetto is proof the system isn't perfect.

He failed so frequently in prison that he "maxed out" his sentence last week and landed in Concord alone, broke and homeless. He can't get into a shelter, because none takes sex offenders. And he can't get treatment, because he can't pay for it.

"It's a public safety issue," said city prosecutor Scott Murray. "Until the guy commits a crime, you can't do anything for him through the system. It's rare that someone just gets maxed out without some sort of safety net."

The Concord police are cautiously watching Perfetto and have notified child-care facilities near the parking garage where Perfetto lives. Chief Robert Barry also alerted city hall staff to Perfetto's past after Perfetto began spending days and nights at the building.

"I felt that caution was in order," Barry said. He did so quietly, choosing not to take his concerns to the news media. His intention, he said, was to respond to a concern at city hall, not inappropriately out a sex offender who has not broken the law since coming to Concord.

Perfetto, 34, began sexually assaulting people at age 17. In 1991, he molested a young relative in Manchester, he said. He served a short sentence at the Youth Development Center, followed by a stay at a Massachusetts group home. He violated his probation with an arrest for petty larceny.

Perfetto spent the next few years living in homeless shelters in Manchester and Nashua, he said. He spent some time in Concord, living in his car. But by 1999, he lost control; in that one year, he was charged with sexually molesting or assaulting three women, he said.

First, Perfetto sexually assaulted a woman at a homeless shelter. Those charges were eventually dropped, he said, when the woman failed to show for the court case. Her boyfriend "got even" by punching Perfetto in the nose five times, he said.

That same year, Perfetto began seeing a woman he described as "mildly retarded." The woman and her mother had been staying in a Manchester shelter, and Perfetto invited them to spend a stormy night at a mobile home he was renting in Goffstown.

As Perfetto tells it, the mother came out of the shower to find him and the woman "fooling around." The mother, who served as her daughter's legal guardian, reported the incident to the police, and Perfetto was arrested again for inappropriate sexual conduct. Those charges were dropped, too, he said.

Following that arrest, Perfetto suffered a nervous breakdown, he said. He was working three jobs, sleeping little and had not been taking medication for his bipolar condition, he said.

A few months later, Perfetto assaulted the third woman, this one a 20-year-old friend of his brother, he said. He describes it this way: "I goosed her, and then when I reached for some bread (at the table), my hand touched her chest."

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