ST. PAUL — State and Hennepin County officials are challenging the proposed conditional release of a man from the Minnesota Sex Offender Program.

State Human Services Commissioner Emily Johnson Piper and Hennepin County’s top prosecutor argued in a recent court filing that a state appeals panel made a mistake by ignoring “all of the competent evidence” against Christopher Coker’s release. That includes five medical experts who said he remained too dangerous for release.

The Star Tribune reports the petition could delay or derail Coker’s conditional release. He was convicted of raping three teenage girls in the early 1990s.

A three-judge judicial panel in August approved Coker’s provisional discharge to a halfway house, and a panel of state appeals court judges upheld this ruling in January.