Is it possible to set the Criteria.DISTINCT_ROOT_ENTITY with my EntityManager object?

I am having the problem of my HQL query returning duplicate objects. I tried the distinct keyword as follows:

select distinct client from ClientVO client " +
 "left join fetch client.policies policy " +
 "left join fetch client.entityLocations entityLocation " +
 "left join fetch entityLocation.locationType locationType " +
 "left join fetch entityLocation.location location " +
 "left join fetch client.clientMembers clientMember " +
 "where (client.id = :id)

But I still get the duplicate object returned. I know it has to do with the recursive join I have: "left join fetch client.clientMembers clientMember ". I came across this article: http://www.hibernate.org/117.html#A12 that seems to identify my problem. I want to be able to try the solution that uses Criteria.DISTINCT_ROOT_ENTITY but cannot figure out how to setResultTransformer from my EntityManager object.

Another thing that is confusing me is why the distinct keyword does not return distinct objects. I understand why in the SQL results there are duplicate records returned, but I thought the HQL distinct keyword refers to the objects returned, not the sql results.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.