But prosecutors flatly disagree, saying he still poses a danger to the community.

Jordan was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the stabbing murder of Barbara Seibel, who was killed after getting a ride from Jordan and resisting his sexual advances, authorities say.

Labeled a "sexual sadist," Jordan also was indicted on charges of sexually assaulting four women in 1972 and 1973, but pleaded guilty and was later acquitted on grounds of mental disease, prosecutors say.

Jordan's pattern was to drive around looking for girls to pick up, according to court documents. Once he succeeded, he would threaten his victim with a knife, take her to a secluded spot and rape her, records indicate. Albert said he carried a "rape kit" with a rope and knife.

At Jordan's insanity trial, psychiatrists also testified he admitted killing a woman in the Philippines in 1971 and raping a woman in California. But Jordan's attorney, Peter Ross, said his client is a changed man, as evidenced by a quarter century of good behavior.

"He's got a perfect, perfect hospital record," Ross said, adding that Jordan has participated in all programs the hospital had to offer. Jordan attributed his past behavior in part to amphetamine psychosis induced by weight-loss drugs he was taking, and now is "responding incredibly to treatment," Ross added.

At the first of several hearings over a possible release, Jordan's treating physician yesterday told Judge Reynaldo Graulty he would have recommended years ago that Jordan be released because of his good conduct, but hospital administrators wouldn't have let him, Ross said.

City Deputy Prosecutor Jeffrey Albert later called the opinion of the physician, Dr. Vit Patelu, "ridiculous," and said there always has been pressure not to release individuals like Jordan because they are dangerous.

Jordan filed applications for conditional release in 1980, 1982, 1991 and 1997, but usually the applications were withdrawn after unfavorable evaluations, prosecutors say.

"If the state is going to have not guilty by reason of insanity, it has to have" the possibility for release, Ross said. "It's not just a trick to lock individuals up."

But Albert said the avuncular, white-haired man applying for release now is little changed from the trustworthy-looking man who lured women into his car more than 25 years ago.

"People like this don't change," Albert said.

Mental health experts who examined Jordan stopped short of recommending total release, while an expert for the state, Harold Hall, reported that Jordan "persistently attempted to fake and distort" his behavior while hospitalized.

Jim Seibel, brother of the woman killed in 1975, said similar claims were made about Jordan's good behavior just weeks before his sister was murdered.

"It's practically the same wording," he said. Seibel previously called the insanity acquittal the "best justice" because it kept Jordan locked up longer than he might have been had there been no such finding. But Seibel said he still worries about what will happen if Jordan is released.