[Ed: As if to prove my point made in a story earlier today (see "Residents seek action against sex offender "cluster"") "Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Supervisor in Altadena County has said: "we want to ensure there is no neighborhood in this county or state where sexual predators are allowed to roam and create a danger and threat to young people.""]
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County seeks to strengthen Jessica's Law
By Troy Anderson, Staff Writer, Daily News of Los Angeles
The county Board of Supervisors Tuesday called for tougher local restrictions on where the state can place released sex offenders.
The supervisors directed the County Counsel's Office to review Jessica's Law, or Proposition 83, to determine options local government have to restrict the housing of sex offenders in neighborhoods.
"Right now, the state has the authority to place them basically anywhere and, as a result of a great outcry in the Altadena community ... we were able to mobilize the community, and the state has now removed the sexual predators from that neighborhood," Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said.
"But we want to ensure there is no neighborhood in this county or state where sexual predators are allowed to roam and create a danger and threat to young people."
The vote follows a community effort late last month that led state officials to remove six sex offenders placed in an Altadena neighborhood.
Earlier in the month, a judge denied a request by a twice-convicted child molester from Santa Barbara to move to the county, possibly the Antelope Valley.
Those actions followed revelations late last year that about 660 convicted sex offenders were wandering free in California, not wearing the monitoring devices that Jessica's Law requires.
State corrections officials say they removed the satellite tracking devices from the sex offenders who had completed their parole, regardless of the lifetime
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monitoring requirement.
They argued that the law was too vague and wasn't clear on which authorities - state or local - would be responsible for monitoring them.
"The issue of finding sex offenders housing is one that is complex," California Department of Corrections spokesman Seth Unger said. "And at the state level, the Sex Offender Management Board is actively looking at this issue and making recommendations."
Jessica's Law, co-authored by Lancaster Republican husband-and-wife state legislators Sen. George Runner and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner and passed by voters in 2006, cracks down on sex offenders and sets distances they must live away from schools and parks.
The law includes a provision that authorizes local governments to include additional restricted sites they deem appropriate.
Last month, the city of Long Beach directed its city attorney to draft an ordinance restricting residency requirements of sex offenders in relation to licensed child-care facilities.
The city is also researching the possibility of limiting the number of sex offenders living in the same apartment complex.
The County Counsel's Office is expected to draft a legal analysis for the supervisors, exploring specific restrictions on where sex offenders can live, how they are monitored and an overview of group homes and licensing requirements.
The office will then make recommendations that may include a proposed ordinance similar to the one in Long Beach, along with other steps the county can take.
"we want to ensure there is no neighborhood in this county or state where sexual predators are allowed to roam ..."
Residents seek action against sex offender "cluster"
Long Beach officials and the state parole board are weighing neighbors' concerns against the rights of the dozen parolees.
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
How many high-risk registered sex offenders should be allowed to live in the same apartment building?
At 1149 E. 1st St. in Long Beach, where at the same time as many as 19 rapists and child molesters on parole have resided in an apartment building near two licensed day-care centers, the question, and its elusive answer, have become an emotionally charged issue.
A female neighbor carries a baseball bat at night for protection. Many families have added extra deadbolts to their doors. At least one couple has moved out of the downtown neighborhood of palm-shaded apartments and condominiums less than two blocks from the beach. Children no longer play outside without parental supervision.
"My girlfriend is freaked out, so we're looking to move," said Dana Reichers, 30, whose apartment building is only a few blocks from the 12-unit complex that locals have labeled "the predator house."
Joe Quiniro, 49, said his wife wants to move out of the condominium they bought 3 1/2 years ago for $200,000.
"I don't want to go; I love this place," he said. "But we don't want to live like prisoners in our own home."
With angry residents demanding action, the Long Beach city attorney's office and the parole board of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are weighing the rights of the parolees against residents' concerns. Meanwhile, the Long Beach City Council has unanimously agreed to draft an ordinance that would ban high-risk registered sex offenders from being allowed to live within 2,000 feet of a day-care center.
On Tuesday the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, at the urging of Supervisor Mike Antonovich, directed the county counsel to determine if state law allows local governments to restrict the housing of sex offenders in neighborhoods. Under state law, a convicted sex offender released on parole since 2006 may not live within 2,000 feet of parks or primary or secondary schools.
"The parole department needs to be more thoughtful of the community and the parolees in their care," said Councilwoman Suja Lowenthal, whose 2nd District includes the apartment building. "Instead, they placed these men in what has become a circus cage. For us, the parole department is public enemy No. 1."
"How arrogant can authorities be to walk into a neighborhood and do this without once uttering a word?" she added. "They need to know I hold them and a greedy landlord responsible."
State parole board spokesman Gordon Hinkle said Lowenthal's criticism was "not fair." He added authorities were doing "the best they can."
"Is it really safer to have these homeless guys spread out one or two to a block, or have 10 or 12 in one place where we can keep an eye on them?" he asked.
State law bars more than six registered sex offenders on parole from living together in a residential care facility, unless they are legally related by blood, marriage or adoption. Only one sex offender is allowed to live in a single-family dwelling. The law, however, does not address the number of sex offenders allowed to live in an apartment building, authorities said.
The building's owner, Mile Milivojevic, who runs a business called Light Green Money, receives about $1,500 a month from the state corrections department for each registered sex offender housed in the complex -- roughly $500 more than going rental rates on the block.
Milivojevic declined to comment on the issue, except to say, "I don't feel good about everything that's happening. I don't like what's going on."
But neighbor Jerry Ryan, 51, who shares an apartment with a teenage son and daughter, angrily recalled a recent telephone conversation he had with Milivojevic.
"I said to him, 'Are you crazy? You're scaring people around here,' " Ryan said. "He just laughed and said, 'I have to educate people in the neighborhood about discrimination.' "
The problem surfaced in January when ownership of the building changed hands and tenants began noticing increasing numbers of what they described as scruffy-looking men on the premises. The new owner told renters, including families with children, that the men were "maintenance workers," according to Deputy City Atty. Crystal Meyers.
By the end of the month the building's previous tenants had been replaced by 19 registered sex offenders, some living three and four to a unit.
Last week, the number had dropped to 12, according to postings on the Megan's Law website, which provides detailed information on registered sex offenders.
One of the current tenants would only say before closing a door, "We've been instructed not to talk to the press."
Neighbors cited encounters they call worrisome. One of the sex offenders recently offered to help a 16-year-old boy empty a trash can into a Dumpster in a back alley. Women have complained that some of the men have tried to strike up conversations with them. Others don't like that the parolees often hang out in the alley.
As a precaution, Marge Landress, who owns an adjacent apartment building, last Wednesday put up four "No Trespassing" signs on a wall facing the building in question.
"Something has to be done. They should never have put so many sex offenders in one building," Landress said. She'd like to sell but asked, "Who'd buy it?"
A similar controversy erupted recently in the Meadows community of unincorporated Altadena, where neighbors discovered six registered sex offenders on parole living in a residential care facility.
On Thursday, Assemblyman Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) announced that parole authorities, yielding to pressure to do so, planned to relocate those offenders next week. That could not happen soon enough for Meadows residents.
"I hate it. I want them out. I'm afraid to go out and get the mail. They've ruined our neighborhood," said Jane Szabo, 41. "As soon as we found out about this, seven of us printed brochures and color photographs of the gentlemen and then went door to door in the rain to alert neighbors."
In another case, parole agents placed as many as 47 sex offenders on parole in the same apartment building in the 1900 block of North Marianna Avenue in East Los Angeles, less than 2,000 feet from a high school on the Cal State Los Angeles campus, corrections authorities acknowledged Tuesday.
"As soon as we became aware that there was a high school nearby, district administrators were instructed to relocate the parolees," Hinkle said. "The issue at Cal State L.A. was discovered on Jan. 10 and all were relocated by Jan. 14."
In Long Beach, the controversy has been something of a spectacle. Recently, the "John and Ken Show" radio program was broadcast from the street in front of the building, which has been a magnet for the curious.
"In a few months, things will be back to the way they were," said John Sparling, 45, a flight attendant who lives just a few doors down from the building.
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[Ed: Let's see: the "public" doesn't want sex offenders to live:
-near schools and parks
-near other homes
-near a day care
-near a school bus stop
-with other sex offenders
-alone, in a car parked down the street
-etc.
Oh! I get it! the "public" just doesn't want sex offenders to LIVE! And, the scary part is, the "public" really believes that they have every right to stop the sex offenders from LIVING!
[a reader comments: My favorite part of the article:
"Neighbors cited encounters they call worrisome. One of the sex offenders recently offered to help a 16-year-old boy empty a trash can into a Dumpster in a back alley. Women have complained that some of the men have tried to strike up conversations with them."
Help take out the trash? Try to start conversations? What monsters! How dare they pretend to be human.
Sigh.]
Bill Aims To Seize Sex Offenders' Property
Kentucky Post
The proposed sex offender law would work much like those already on the books for taking the property of convicted drug dealers. [Ed: And look at what a civil liberties success that's been! Every nasty, possible combination of miserable laws will be trumpeted, in turn, as brilliantly innovative in order to advance the careers of these embarrassingly transparent legislators. Ultimately though, the blame rests substantially upon a dumb, and increasingly dumber, public and a judiciary that shirks its Constitutional responsibilites]
Two state representatives from Northern Kentucky want the property of sex offenders confiscated so that those who use the Internet to lure their victims lose their computers for starters.
The bill, filed last month by Reps. Arnold Simpson, D-Covington, and Thomas Kerr, R-Taylor Mill, would “require the forfeiture of all real and personal property used in or acquired as a result of certain sexual offenses against minors.”
If passed, the measure would allow for the seizure of property used by convicted sex offenders, including their cars, money, computers, money, homes — any personal belongings they may have used during the sex crime against a minor.
House Bill 210 would complement House Bill 367, which was passed last week and is aimed at protecting children from cyberstalking.
Too often, Simpson said, the tendency in Frankfort is to enhance criminal penalties in ways that result in longer sentences. The problem with longer sentences, he said, is that they increase correctional expenses for the state and counties.
“I feel the bill would be still another tool to attempt to combat crimes against our children and would have little or no budget impact,” said Simpson.
The proposed sex offender law would work much like those already on the books for taking the property of convicted drug dealers.
“If they use an asset in a crime they run the risk of forfeiting their property,” Kerr said.
Under the bill, officials would also be able to take the sex offender’s home, or other property, if that is where the sex crime took place.
“HB 210 may be unconstitutional in that the state cannot deprive a person of property without affording a prompt opportunity to reclaim it if it is unlawfully seized,” said Daniel T. Goyette, chief public defender for Louisville Metro Public Defender's Office. “The Constitution requires a remedy for all injuries done to property ‘without sale, denial or delay.’”
Goyette gave the example of a car taken away from the someone arrested because the car is where the alleged abuse took place. Under the proposed law, an officer could seize an alleged sex offender's car, leaving him without the vehicle even the allegation is withdrawn by the complainant an hour later. The problem is compounded, he said, if the seized car was used by the accused to get to and from work each day.
Under the bill, property would be seized by law enforcement, held and then sold. The funds would go to police and prosecutors, minus any liens on the property, such as car loans.
“This will help prosecutors by giving them additional funds to prosecute the offenders,” said Kerr.
Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders, who, according to Simpson, requested the bill, said that under the bill 15 percent of the money that comes from sex offenders’ confiscated property would be earmarked for prosecutors, who could use the funds for expert witnesses, forensic investigations and the like.
Law enforcement agencies investigating such crimes would collect about 85 percent of the money brought in from sex offenders’ seized assets.
“It’s a great benefit to law enforcement and to the protection of children,” said Sanders.
Goyette said the bill invites problems.
“What people do not seem to understand about this is that if the government can seize a sex offender's property with impunity, there is nothing to prevent seizure of other property,” said Goyette.
“The government does not start exercising such power by seizing the property of citizens who have influence and positions of prominence in the community—they start with people everyone despises anyway.”
Once the principle is established, he said, the “only protection is having enough political strength to avoid it happening to your particular group or constituency.”
“It appears to be similar to other forfeiture statutes, and everything forfeitable under this new proposed statute is probably already forfeitable under KRS 500.090, the general criminal forfeiture statute. I question whether this bill is even necessary, except to create a fund for prosecutors without imposing a tax for it,” Goyette said.
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