Los Angeles Times
By Maria L. La Ganga
Lake County prosecutors have investigated the possibility that information in the Internet database might have been the motive for the killing of a convicted sex offender.
LAKEPORT, CALIF. — Convicted rapist Michael A. Dodele had been free just 35 days when sheriff's deputies found him dead last month in his aging, tan mobile home, his chest and left side punctured with stab wounds.
Officers quickly arrested Dodele's neighbor, 29-year-old construction worker Ivan Garcia Oliver, who made "incriminating comments, essentially admitting to his attacking Dodele," the Lake County Sheriff's Department said in a statement.
Prosecutors said they have investigated the possibility that the slaying of Dodele, 67, stemmed from his having been listed on the state's Megan's Law database of sex offenders. If so, his death may be the first in the state to result from such a listing, experts said.
Oliver pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, burglary and elder abuse when he was arraigned Nov. 30.
In a jailhouse interview Wednesday night, Oliver said he has a son who was molested in the past, and he took action to protect the child.
"Society may see the action I took as unacceptable in the eyes of 'normal' people," Oliver said. "I felt that by not taking evasive action as a father in the right direction, I might as well have taken my child to some swamp filled with alligators and had them tear him to pieces. It's no different."
Although Oliver did not say he killed Dodele, he said that "any father in my position, with moral, home, family values, wouldn't have done any different. At the end of the day, what are we as parents? Protectors, caregivers, nurturers."
In fact, Dodele was not a child molester. But a listing on the Megan's Law website could have left Oliver with the impression that he had abused children because of the way it was written.
Although Dodele's listing has been taken down since his death, a spokesman for the state attorney general said the site described the man's offenses as "rape by force" and "oral copulation with a person under 14 or by force."
"He was convicted of other bad things, but nothing involving a minor," said Richard F. Hinchcliff, chief deputy district attorney for Lake County. But "it would be easy to understand why someone might think so looking at the website."
Dodele's crimes involved sexual assaults on adult women, records show.
A neighbor at the Western Hills Resort & Trailer Park, a tattered collection of mobile homes and bungalows, said that two days before the killing, Oliver "told every house" in the park that he'd found Dodele listed on the website of convicted sexual offenders and was uncomfortable living near him.
"He looked it up on the computer . . . ," the neighbor said. "He said [Dodele] can't be around here."
The park resident requested anonymity because of a fear of reprisal, but reported Oliver's visit and statements to sheriff's deputies after the slaying. "A lot of people told them" about Oliver's claims, the person said.
Officials in Lake County -- a patchwork of wealth and poverty, vineyards and mobile home parks just north of Napa Valley -- would not offer a motive for the killing.
Hinchcliff acknowledged, however, that one possible motive investigated by the district attorney's office was that Oliver knew Dodele was on the Megan's Law list and did not want him as a neighbor.
According to court documents, Dodele committed his first offenses at age 15 and spent the last two decades either in prison or at Atascadero State Hospital receiving treatment.
His last attack was the 1987 knife-point rape of a 37-year-old woman on a Sonoma County beach.
Those were the charges that were listed on the Megan's Law website.
"I think [Oliver and Dodele] are both victims of the Internet," said Charlene Steen, a psychologist who examined Dodele on behalf of the defense in two 2007 trials about whether he should be recommitted to Atascadero.
Both ended in hung juries. Dodele was freed Oct. 16 and was hoping to start over in the crowded little mobile home park, where neighbors described him as open and friendly.
"The family is just sick," Steen said. "They finally got him back. They all thought he had made such great progress, and then this happened. It's pretty bad."
At 10:14 a.m. Nov. 20, an anonymous woman called 911 to report that a man was bleeding from his hands and directed medical personnel to Dodele's space at the mobile home park, according to a written statement from the Sheriff's Department.
When deputies arrived, they found Dodele's body.
The dead man's "immediate neighbors and other residents" sent the deputies to Oliver's home, the statement said, because "he had been seen recently leaving Dodele's residence with what appeared to be blood on his hands and clothing."
There was blood on a car in front of Oliver's house and at the front door of the concrete-block duplex. Inside, deputies reportedly found Oliver with blood on his hands and clothing and "injuries to his hands, consistent with having been in a physical altercation."
Authorities will not divulge exactly what Oliver said when he was arrested.
Steen wrote a letter to a local paper decrying Dodele's death "simply because he was a sex offender whose name and picture were on the registry."
Shortly after the letter was published, Steen said, a woman describing herself as Oliver's wife called to complain.
"She said, 'We have a child who was molested, and my husband is very upset to have a child molester living nearby'," Steen recounted, noting the irony that Dodele's crimes all involved adult women.
Steen said she had not talked to police about the phone call. Oliver said that the woman with whom he lived in the trailer park was his girlfriend, and the two were not married.
Attempts to reach the woman failed. One neighbor said she had moved away after the slaying.
Oliver is being held without bail, a police statement said, because he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in San Diego and was on parole when Dodele was killed.
Speaking from behind a thick glass divider in the visiting area of the Lake County Correctional Facility, Oliver said his son had been molested, but he declined to give the details of his son's assault or to give the child's name.
Although he spoke of "the action I took," he would not describe what happened in the aging mobile home the Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving.
Oliver would not comment on whether Dodele had ever approached his son.
But Oliver said he saw the older man looking at the boy.
"It was more than watching," Oliver said. "You could see his eyes. He was fantasizing, plotting. Later on down the line, who knows how many other children he could have hurt."
Research indicates that, in general, the older rapists get, the lower their risk of re-offending, said L.C. Miccio-Fonseca, chairwoman of the California Coalition on Sex Offenders, a group of treatment providers, probation and parole officers.
In addition, she said, sex offenders who target grown women over the course of many years are unlikely to victimize children.
But when told that Dodele's victims were women and not children, Oliver seemed unfazed. "There is no curing the people that do it," he said.
Oliver's preliminary hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7.
Asked about what he thinks will happen to him, he said, "It's hard to tell at this point. There's no doubt I'm looking at a numerous amount of years. I'm not a lawyer. We haven't gone over the evidence."
But he also said that he "would never change who I am or what I do because of what society thinks is right or not right. I have always been who I am and always will be." Full Story
Megan's Law listing may have led to slaying
County Approves Sex Offender Tracking Van
KESQ.com news services
The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved the purchase of a $109,000 surveillance van for Riverside County law enforcement agencies to use during compliance checks of registered sex offenders.
The district attorney's office requested the high-tech vehicle for future operations by the county's Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE) team, which includes investigators from the D.A.'s office, sheriff's department and several municipal police agencies.
The van will be outfitted with remote-controlled cameras connected to a 900 Megahertz "integrated radio and control system" that will allow an investigator to operate cameras on the vehicle while seated at a desk, potentially miles away, according to the district attorney's office.
The county will cover the cost of the vehicle through funds left over from a $731,950 grant issued by the governor's Office of Emergency Services in May. The grant was intended specifically for SAFE team operations. [Ed: And this is for what "Emergency"? Does the van follow "predators" around as they run errands?] Full Story
St. Lucie eyes fee for registering, tracking sex offenders
SARAH PROHASKA
Palm Beach Post
Detectives in the sheriff's sex offender unit came up with the idea to begin lobbying for the creation of a statewide fee that all sexual offenders and predators would have to pay during the mandatory registration process. The sheriff's attorney last week pitched the idea to St. Lucie County's legislative delegation and this week will attempt to find lawmakers to sponsor the legislation during a trip to Tallahassee. Full Story
[Ed: This is reminiscent of the Chinese government which, upon executing a "criminal" by shooting them in the head, charges the relatives of the executed for the bullet. Or, if you will, the Jewish community being forced to compensate the German government for all of the damage caused by Kristallnacht even though they were the actual victims of the mob violence, not the perpetrators]
Sex offenders in school: What are the rules?
BRENT CHAMPACO; The News Tribune, Tacoma, WA
Last updated: December 8th, 2007 01:22 AM (PST)
Gig Harbor High School suspended four students this week for posting fliers warning peers about two juvenile sex offenders who attend classes there. Full Story
State Sen. Tim Grendell wants to test 'sex offender radar'
Reginald Fields, Plain Dealer (OHIO)
Columbus- A state lawmaker is promoting a Cuyahoga County company's idea for a new electronic device that could warn people when a sex offender is near.
The personal alert system, called Offendar (short for offender radar), would be about the size of a key fob and would vibrate when an offender wearing a monitoring bracelet is within 50 yards.
State Sen. Tim Grendell, a champion of lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key legislation, has invited the Chagrin Falls company behind the technology to demonstrate it today during a Statehouse hearing.
"If there is someone in your area that the state has decided should be wearing an ankle bracelet, you have no idea," said Jerry Pignolet, one of the principals in Offendar LLC. Offendar "is not going to deter him, but it gives you an opportunity to gather your family, get in the car and lock the doors." [Ed: Extraordinary! These are dangerously stupid people!]
But David Singleton, executive director of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center, said the system plays on fears in the community while penalizing people who have already served time in prison for their crimes.
Singleton called Offendar "utterly ridiculous and absurd."
"What are we trying to do, make it impossible for people to get on their feet again and be productive citizens?" he said. "This is crazy, and I'm outraged by it, because it doesn't make my daughter any safer."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said Grendell shouldn't waste state taxpayers' time or money on such a system.
"The assumption that someone once did something bad and is still a danger to everyone else is simply false," said Jeffrey Gamso of the ACLU. "It's going to keep people scared, when the majority of these people are unlikely to ever offend again." Full Story
Accuser of Jailed Sex Offender Says He's Innocent
BALTIMORE CITY PAPER, by Chris Landers
...When Marian first accused Barnes, in 1996, he was dating her sister Tabitha, who was using drugs and working as a prostitute. Marian now says it was jealousy over her sister's closeness with Barnes, and a desire to break them up, that led her to accuse him of rape.
"The only way I knew how to stop him," she says in an interview after the tests were over, "was if I made it to where she was never able to see him again." Full Story\
[Ed: Remember, all that is needed to convict anyone of child sexual assault is the word of a child on the stand. No other proof is needed]
Warning sex offenders; 'Offendar' may find you
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Reginald Fields
State Sen. Tim Grendell of Chester Township, a vocal supporter of various measures aimed at getting tougher on crime, says he is excited about a Geauga County company's proposal "to take real-time monitoring of sex offenders to a new level."
He has invited the company to make a presentation Wednesday to a Senate subcommittee on a device it is developing and seeking to patent called "Offendar," short for offender radar. Offendar LLC is marketing it as a "personal threat detection system featuring a key-fob sized electronic device." The device would give the person carrying it "a vibrating, auditory or visual alarm when a sex offender or other person wearing a court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet is in the immediate vicinity."
Why is the company proposing it? "The public wants more than after-the-fact tracking of sex offenders. Many people want to know when a threat is in the vicinity so they can take steps to protect themselves and their children before something happens," according to the company's presentation.
The idea is sure to be provocative, especially among those who think efforts targeting sex offenders have gone too far.
Grendell seems to have no reservations about the company's proposal. "In seeing their idea and understanding how it can enhance what Ohio is already doing, I was very impressed," he said in a memo Monday to fellow lawmakers and the media. [Ed: So stupid and so bizarre it needs no further comment. An appeal to sheer stupidity!]
Comment from Reader:
Why don't we put a monitoring device on lawmakers so we know when they are in the area. They seem to feel that the State of Ohio needs to monitor and know all, so I think that should include monitoring them as well. Course, then everyone would know their dirty laundry too and the game is that they only get to know others dirty laundry...
Inmate (Sex Offender) found dead in Tracy prison cell. Officials investigating incident as possible homicide
TRACY — An inmate was found dead inside his cell at Deuel Vocational Institution Saturday morning, prison officials said.
Prison staff handing out the morning doses of medication to inmates found Randy James Rabelos, 28, unresponsive in his cell around 7:20 a.m. who appeared to have been dead for a "couple of hours," Lt. Ray Munoz said.
Investigators from the prison, along with the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Justice, are investigating the matter and have questioned Rabelos' cell mate, Rick Henry Kase, 39, from Santa Clara County.
"They were in the cell together for the last 12 hours," Munoz said. "We got started into looking at how Rabelos died and immediately started to look at his cell mate. The case is being investigated as a possible homicide."
According to preliminary findings from the San Joaquin County Coroner's Office, Rabelos appeared to have died from asphyxiation with blunt force trauma. An official cause of death is pending a toxicology report which can take up to six weeks to complete.
Rabelos arrived at DVI in September from Tuolumne County and was serving a three-year sentence as a sex offender, Munoz said.
Kase arrived at the prison a little more than a month ago and is currently serving a term for parole violation, and being a convicted felon in possession of a deadly weapon. [Ed: Sex offenders tortured and murdered in prisons are among the least publicized crimes today]
Police ID man found dead in Lincoln apartment
Associated Press - November 6, 2007 9:35 AM ET
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Lincoln police have identified the man whose body was found in an apartment this weekend.
Police say 44-year-old Andrea Williams died of a stab wound. His body was found Saturday morning inside the apartment after police were called there.
No arrests have been made, and police have yet to rule it a homicide. They instead are calling his death suspicious.
Police say Williams was registered as sex offender and had recent run-ins with police.
Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, http://www.journalstar.com [Ed: Another likely vigilante killing]
Convicted child rapist went to ground after becoming the target of a hate campaign
Blackpool Gazette (U.K.)
A CONVICTED child rapist went to ground after becoming the target of a hate campaign.
Pensioner John Harness moved from Blackburn to Blackpool but did not tell the police.
Harness, 71, was put on the sex offenders register for life and jailed for eight years after being found guilty in 1998 of five charges of raping a girl under the age of 16.
The pensioner, formerly of Hornby Road, Blackpool, who told the court he now had no fixed address, pleaded guilty to breaching a sex offenders registration order by failing to notify police of his address between September 1 2006 and March 28 this year.
He was sentenced to five months imprisonment by Blackpool magistrates.
Prosecutor Julie Fogarty said in March this year police went to flats on Hornby Road, Blackpool, on an unrelated matter and were told Harness had lived there for three weeks.
Checks revealed Harness was a convicted sex offender and the address he had registered with police was Bolton Road, Blackburn. When police went to that address the landlord said Harness had left in 2006.
Harness said he had not told police about his move because police would tell people he was on the sex offenders register.
Gerry Coyle, defending, said his client had originally lived at Leeds Close, Blackburn.
Mr Coyle added: "Police decided to check he was still there and because they spoke to people in the street, he became the target of threats and abuse.
"Petrol was poured through his door and lit. He then moved to a bed and breakfast in Bolton Road.
"After spending time in hospital that address was no longer available to him. He moved to Blackpool and did not tell the police of his address because he feared they would tell others."
Man, accused of fondling, found hanged at Mayer home
By Jim Schultz
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Redding, CA
LEFT BEHIND: Redding police Detective Bill Schueller pets a dog at the La Rinconada Place home of former Redding Bank ofCommerce CEO Michael Mayer on Wednesday after Schueller and others investigated an apparent suicide there. The dog was later taken to the home of a friend of Mayer’s for safekeeping, Schueller said.
LEFT BEHIND: Redding police Detective Bill Schueller pets a dog at the La Rinconada Place home of former Redding Bank ofCommerce CEO Michael Mayer on Wednesday after Schueller and others investigated an apparent suicide there. The dog was later taken to the home of a friend of Mayer’s for safekeeping, Schueller said. View gallery »
A middle-aged man was found hanging Wednesday from a rope attached to an oak tree in the backyard of the upscale home of former Redding Bank of Commerce CEO Michael Mayer.
But Redding police would not confirm that the victim was the 51-year-old former bank executive charged with molesting a 16-year-old girl in August.
The man's identity won't be released until relatives are notified, said Redding police Capt. Peter Hansen.
No one else was home at the time of the apparent suicide, Hansen said.
Flanked by newspaper, radio and television reporters, Hansen said police went to Mayer's La Rinconada Place home about 4:30 p.m. after a neighbor reported seeing someone hanging from the tree inside the wrought-iron fence enclosing the backyard.
Speaking from Mayer's manicured front yard, Hansen said it appeared that the man's death was a suicide. He declined to say if a suicide note had been left and said that the case has been turned over to the Shasta County coroner's office.
Most of those who live on the street in Mayer's quiet and heavily treed neighborhood stayed indoors as police investigated the hanging, and those who did briefly venture outside politely declined to talk to reporters.
Mayer was arrested Aug. 19 after a 16-year-old family friend told police that Mayer had sexually assaulted her at the house where the body was found Wednesday.
Eight days later, Redding Bank of Commerce fired him from its top job, which last year paid him $455,000 in salary, benefits and other compensation.
When he was arrested, police reported that the 16-year-old girl had told them that Mayer massaged her shoulders and back in a darkened family room where Mayer's daughter and niece were lying on the floor watching television.
She also told police she was "not sure what to do" when the massage allegedly went too far and Mayer fondled her breasts and groin, the police report said.
Mayer's wife told police that her husband, who had been drinking heavily that day, "lost it" after being confronted by the alleged molestation, and that he had threatened to kill himself, the report said.
Charged with two counts of felony sexual penetration and misdemeanor counts of annoying a child, sexual battery and indecent exposure, Mayer was released from jail on $100,000 bail.
The court also ordered him not to drink or to have firearms, and to stay away from female minors unless a responsible adult was present.
Mayer's last Superior Court appearance was on Sept. 17 when Judge William Gallagher agreed to hear the case after two other judges recused themselves.
Reporter Jim Schultz can be reached at 225-8223 or at jschultz@redding.com.
Sex-offender checks in schools
Prince William County Public Schools is implementing a new electronic Visitor Identification System in all schools.
Effective December 3, Adults visiting Prince William Public Schools will have to present government-issued identification under a new security measure designed to keep sex offenders out. The computerized system runs each visitor against state-run offender databases nationwide to keep track of who visits students.
"This gives us an instant check on whether or not somebody coming into a school, be it a parent, an offender, what have you, is in a national [sex offender] database," incoming school board Chairman Milton Johns said.
The new computerized system, which costs $130,000 to start and about $37,000 each year, has been used on three campuses since a pilot program began in the spring. [Ed: Wait a minute! I can do this check with my $1,000 computer and an Internet connection. Why $130K + $37K/year? Also, when was the last time you heard of a sex offender (who wasn't a teacher) entering a school during classes and either molesting or kidnapping a student? This is sheer madness!]
"When you walk in, they run your driver's license through a scanner the size of a hand-held stapler. It takes your name and date of birth and runs it against the sex-offender databases in every state and would look for a match," he said. Photos will be used to compare people with identical names and birthdays.
If a parent with a legitimate educational reason for being on the campus has a hit on the database, the school staff will take extra caution and restrict him or her to the office area, Crowe said.
Sex Offender Registries: Putting Lives At Risk?
Double Murder of Maine Men Sparks Debate About Online Sex Registries
By GITIKA AHUJA
April 18, 2006 —
The brutal slayings of two convicted sex offenders from Maine have re-ignited national debate on whether online sex offender registries should provide extensive personal information on their registrants.
Twenty-year-old Stephen Marshall of Nova Scotia, Canada, killed himself aboard a Boston-bound bus after allegedly murdering two convicted sex offenders in Maine, whom he'd found on the state's sex offender Web site.
One of the victims, 24-year-old William Elliott, was convicted four years ago of having sex with a girlfriend who was only days away from her 16th birthday. Elliott served four months in jail.
Marshall, who had no previous criminal record, had earlier gone online and obtained personal information on both Elliott and Joseph L. Gray, 57, another convicted sex offender, whom Marshall is also suspected of murdering earlier that day.
Investigators also revealed that Marshall obtained the addresses and other information of 34 people from Maine's online sex offender registry.
Now some are asking, what about the privacy rights of sex offenders? Do state Web sites provide too much information and even promote vigilante violence?
Without the registry, "he'd still be alive today," Shirley Turner, Elliott's mother, told The Boston Globe. "He didn't say anything; he just shot him in cold blood," she said.
She described her son as a "warm, loving young man" who suffered from disabilities and "was doing so good."
The state of Maine makes photos, names, addresses, ages and criminal histories of about 2,200 registered sex offenders available online.
The online sex registry in Maine was temporarily taken down after it got word of the deaths, but it has since been re-established.
Outrage Across State Lines
The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has argued that its online state registry should be removed in light of legislation the state Senate recently approved that would would make it easier to post information on sex offenders by expanding the kind of offenses that would require registration. "This is a stark reminder that there's no evidence that online sex offender registries increase public safety. In fact, they might just do the opposite," said Allen Gilbert, executive director of the Vermont ACLU.
"They should not be making any changes to the online registry unless they can determine that, indeed, the registry increases public safety. We think they never should have created it. They should just pull it immediately."
Still, even while the horrific Maine murders have raised new questions about the safety of the offenders, state authorities continue to defend the public's right to know about their neighbors' criminal activity.
"Anyone in this day and age can log on and find the addresses of anyone in the world," said Steve McCausland, with the Maine Department of Public Safety. "It doesn't have to be a sex register; it could be any of the search engines that are out in the world, including the telephone book."
"Our view is that this is an isolated incident and the value of the registry to parents and communities outweighs the impact of one isolated incident," said Jason Gibbs, spokesman for Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas.
Although there has been no definitive link between the Web site and the murders, investigators have confirmed that Marshall had been on the state's sex offender Web site because the site requires users to register. In this case, Marshall registered with his real name and address, allowing police to see which profiles he had viewed.
However, Web site users could theoretically use a fake name and address.
Following Federal Law
While federal law requires each state to work within the requirements of community notification, some states have gone beyond the obligation by posting the personal information of sex offenders online.
"It's easier to meet the requirements by providing information on the Web site," said Charles Onley, research associate for the Center for Sex Offender Management, an office of the Department of Justice. "But there is no [federal] requirement of Internet access."
The states' Web sites are not always comprehensive. It is within the individual state's jurisdiction to determine which sex offenders pose a higher risk to the community, and it can make their information more accessible than others'.
Onley said some states, like Pennsylvania, have been more conservative about the information they provide the public. Other states, like Florida, have been more liberal in their approach.
"There has been a drift toward full disclosure [of personal information]. The thought was to go out and inform the community," said Onley, who explained that there was a lot of public hostility toward sex offenders when federal law required that their whereabouts be made available to the public.
"The thing is, you have the mandate and the public wants the information. The information might be less valuable [without addresses]," said Onley. "The public would want addresses."
All states do not require that sex offenders' addresses be made public, though many do provide that kind of detail.
The National Sex Offender Registry provides online information on sex offenders in each state except Oregon and South Dakota.
"It's not just that it is online, [anybody] could have gone down to the sheriffs office to get the information," said Onley.
Not the First Case
While incidents of vigilante violence against sex offenders are rare, this week's case is not the first.
In September Michael A. Mullen of Bellingham, Wash., was charged with the murders of two convicted sex offenders after he admitted to police that he wanted to kill them after he saw the information listed on the state's online sex offender Web site. He sits in jail awaiting trial.
In a 2004 case, the state of New Hampshire sent 57-year-old Lawrence Trant to jail for 10 to 30 years after he pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder on two convicted sex offenders whose names and addresses he'd located on the state's sex offender registry.
In an interview with The Boston Globe, Trant said, "I don't want people to steal the souls of little kids. I'm doing 30 years for something I think is morally justified."
Maine investigators have yet to examine a laptop computer Marshall carried with him on the bus before he committed suicide.
Investigators hope it can explain why Marshall was apparently driven to kill the two men from Maine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
Psychologist Says Registry Contributed to Murder
By Dr. Charlene Steen -- Letters to the EditorArticle Last Updated: 11/27/2007 10:48:49 PM PST
Thanks to the internet registry, which has done nothing to decrease recidivism, a client of mine is dead murdered in Lake County, simply because he was a sex offender whose name and picture were on the registry.
He had recently been released from the hospital after years of treatment. He had changed his life, and, at age 68, had plans for a positive future, family love and support, a job, etc. A man broke into his trailer, stabbed him numerous times someone he didn't even know, only because he was on the registry.
I am sickened, not only because of his murder, but because we have not condemned the stigmatization of offenders through useless laws which will not decrease reoffense, and may even increase offending.
I am sickened by our lack of humanity. How many more such murders will there have to be? Will no one stand up and change these draconian laws which protect no one, and cause pain, suffering, and even death to persons who have committed no new crimes?
Charlene Steen, PhD
Licensed psychologist
Napa
Dodele Murder: An Inconvenient Truth?
Michael Dodele, age 61, was murdered November 20 in Lake County California. His alleged assailant was Garcia Oliver, 29, who lived in the same trailer park. In contention is Oliver's motivation in the brutal knife attack. Many suspect Oliver to have been motivated to kill Dodele after learning that Dodele was listed on California's Registered Sex Offender website. Others are denying that this was a factor in Dodele's murder, including some public officials.
This raises a question: are police investigators and District Attorneys (most of whom favor "Megan's Law" websites and "name and shame" flyers) less likely to publicize the motivation of an accused assailant when their investigations turn up evidence that "community notification" may have provided the impetus to commit a murder? Are we less likely to learn these details than if it were any other "straightforward" murder?
-Allan Marshall
Sex offender gets 1 year for teaching driving
William T. Webb, 46, of Milwaukee was charged with committing the felony in December 2005 while he was employed as an instructor for Arcade Drivers School out of Brookfield Square in 2004 and 2005. His case was believed to be the first use in Waukesha County of the 10-year-old law and among the first uses statewide.
Webb, who was convicted of a child sex offense in 1992 in Washington state, claimed he was not aware of the Wisconsin law barring him from working with children. Nonetheless, Schimel said, Webb violated the law and should be punished.
Webb told Waukesha County Circuit Judge Lee S. Dreyfus Jr. that he "never had any ill or sinister intent" when he took the driving school job. At first, he was employed only to train driving instructors. He began instructing students because he needed more work hours. "I took the job seriously. . . . I never took advantage of anyone. I never put anyone in danger," Webb told Dreyfus.[Ed: Keep in mind, he was not on Parole or Probation during the time he worked as a driving instructor. He had served his time. Nonetheless, he was committing a FELONY by working in an occupation that brought him into contact with minors]
Psychologist says registry contributed to death
Thanks to the internet registry, which has done nothing to decrease recidivism, a client of mine is dead murdered in Lake County, simply because he was a sex offender whose name and picture were on the registry.
He had recently been released from the hospital after years of treatment. He had changed his life, and, at age 68, had plans for a positive future, family love and support, a job, etc. A man broke into his trailer, stabbed him numerous times someone he didn't even know, only because he was on the registry.
I am sickened, not only because of his murder, but because we have not condemned the stigmatization of offenders through useless laws which will not decrease reoffense, and may even increase offending.
I am sickened by our lack of humanity. How many more such murders will there have to be? Will no one stand up and change these draconian laws which protect no one, and cause pain, suffering, and even death to persons who have committed no new crimes?
Charlene Steen, PhD
Licensed psychologist
Napa
Mason County sex offender missing
Briggs was convicted of first-degree child rape in 2000 when he was 13-years-old of raping a nine-year-old girl. He also admitted to sexually assaulting the girl on another occasion.
Last June, Briggs moved from Yakima County to Mason County, but did not tell authorities. He was arrested and pled guilty to failing to register as a sex offender.
If you see him, police say to call them immediately, but do not approach him. [Ed: Oh, please! As if he's terribly dangerous! This is a perfect example of the press printing whatever the hell the police ask them to print. Also, this is a good time to point out that the word "rape" as it is used to describe sex acts with minors is about as reliably accurate as the term "sexually violent predator". Take it with an entire box of salt!]
Perils of bans on ex-sex offenders
Christian Science Monitor
Politicians should heed a state supreme court that has voided a ban on where sex offenders live.Last week, Georgia's supreme court became the first high court in the US to overturn a state law that restricts areas where former sex offenders may live. More than half the states have such laws, and many amount to banishment. Perhaps this decision will nudge politicians to reconsider these laws.
The Georgia case wasn't argued on the emerging view that the residency bans are counterproductive. Rather, it turned on an unusual application of the Fifth Amendment, which says the government may not take private property without just compensation.
The case concerned Anthony Mann. In 2002, he pled no contest to "indecent liberties with a child," then served four months in jail, followed by probationary supervision. In 2003, he married and bought a home in Georgia. Mr. Mann made sure it did not lie within 1,000 feet of any area where minors gather as defined by the state.
But a day-care center moved to within 1,000 feet of the Manns. His probation officer said he must move or face arrest. Mann sued, arguing the law was unconstitutional because it amounted to an illegal "taking" of private property.
The state supreme court unanimously agreed, adding that Mann faced repeated uprooting. This time, a day-care center broke the 1,000-foot barrier, the court found. Next time it could be a playground, a school bus stop, a skating rink.
The ruling voided the residency part of Georgia's sex-offender law. The decision, though, may not have much legal impact outside the state. Most state residency bans aren't as severe, and the case rests uniquely on property rights.
But the ruling will do well if it persuades lawmakers that blanket residency bans are no response to public fears stemming from tragic, high-profile cases of convicted child predators repeating their crimes.
Such fears are understandable but misplaced. About 80 to 90 percent of child sexual abuse occurs with a family member or someone a child knows. And sex offenders have among the lowest recidivism rates of any class of criminals. Yet sweeping residency restrictions that focus on "stranger-danger" have multiplied in states and cities.
Several studies show no correlation between child sex offenses and where perpetrators live. Law enforcers now argue that bans make things worse. Zones overlap, ruling out living possibilities in urban areas. Offenders are forced into rural America, far from jobs, treatment, and family, which provide stability and rehabilitation. Full Story
We hate to say we told you so... The flaws in 'Jessica's Law'
Who will pay for enforcing it? How do we penalize those who break it? And who trains the enforcers? No one seems to know.
Los Angeles Times
We hate to say we told you so. But we told you so! A key portion of the "Jessica's Law" ballot measure that an astounding 70% of California voters backed a year ago may never be put into effect. Times staff writer Michael Rothfeld reported Tuesday that state and local officials are each expecting the other to foot the very big bill to monitor global positioning satellite data to track thousands of released sex offenders. Forever.
Other details no one seems to have thought about much when sending Proposition 83 to last November's ballot include how to penalize released offenders who cut the GPS signaling devices from their ankles; no such penalties were mandated by the initiative. Or how to train police and sheriff's deputies to track the movements of offenders through their jurisdictions, in addition to their regular public safety tasks.
The tough-on-crime lobby made the initiative sound so simple: Do you want to protect California's children from 65,000 sex offenders or don't you? Of course you do. So it appealed directly to the emotions of people who revile those who rape and sexually abuse children: Increase the offenders' sentences. After their time is served, restrict where they can live. And track their movements for life by using the power of new technologies.
Fear of monsters and faith in technology. The combination is powerful enough to defeat reason -- and to create ballot measures that promise magical results while delivering only magical thinking. California is prone to that kind of ballot-box daydreaming.
Initiatives would be unnecessary if the Legislature worked better. Had Jessica's Law been restricted to a bill, the Legislature could have identified the practical problems and could have corrected any flaws with follow-up legislation. But the Legislature is a mess, and legislators are unmotivated to fix it. Lawmakers blew a chance to change the way their districts are drawn, leaving the Democratic majority with power to block Republican bills and the Republican minority with just enough clout to block a budget. The job of improving the system falls to the voters, which means action -- perhaps a redistricting plan -- in the form of an initiative.
Here we go again. More ballot measures. More magical thinking. At this rate, it will take an eternity before California breaks the cycle of dysfunction. Perhaps by then, we will have figured out how to enforce our new law to track sex offenders.
Sex offense, stabbing connected?
Stabbing death investigation continues
[please note the vicious reader comments which follow the story]
By GLENDA ANDERSON
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The Lake County Sheriff’s Department is investigating whether Michael Dodele’s status as a registered sex offender contributed to his Nov. 20 stabbing death.
“That’s what we’re looking into,” said Chief Deputy Russ Perdock. He would not divulge details of Dodele’s criminal history nor his relationship with the man suspected of stabbing him, Ivan Garcia Oliver, 29.
Dodele, 67, was stabbed several times.
He was dead when deputies arrived at Western Hills Mobile Home Park on Lakeshore Boulevard.
Garcia Oliver was booked later the same day on suspicion of murder and a parole violation stemming from an assault conviction in San Diego County.
The victim and suspect are believed to have known each other. They lived near each other at the mobile home park, Perdock said.
Reader Comments:
By saunterelle | Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 06:47P
Thank you to this latino for taking care of business.
By orvicehole | Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 06:34P
tIME TO DIE LOSER.
By robert5523 | Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 04:20P
Why do I suspect nobody cares that the troublemaker got himself murdered? And, who wants to bet that, yes, he goosed the wrong guy & thats what started it.
By saunterelle | Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007 03:58P
Good. One less pederass.
[this reminds me of how, once whipped-up into a frenzy of anti-Jewish hatred, many Germans felt fully justified in inflicting violent revenge against any Jew at any moment of their choosing and did so with impunity. It is especially disturbing when this sort of blood-thirsty response becomes commonplace and goes unprotested]
Man Serving Sex Assault Sentence Murdered
Inmate Died From Head, Chest Trauma
WYFF4.com
RIDGELAND, S.C. -- Department of Corrections officials said that a Spartanburg man who was serving a sentence for sexual exploitation of minors was found dead at the prison.
An autopsy found that Thomas Walter Turner, 40, died of head and chest trauma.
Authorities said that they had initially thought that Turner died of natural causes. He was found dead at Ridgeland Correctional Institution about 8:45 p.m. on Nov. 20.
South Carolina Department of Corrections Communications Director Josh Gelinas said an investigation was begun immediately after the autopsy results were released.
In October 2005, Turner started serving a 16-year sentence for criminal sexual conduct with a minor.
Ridgeland is a medium security facility.
Turner was arrested in May 2005 after State Law Enforcement agents found pictures of boys and girls having sex on Turner's home computer.
At the time of that arrest, Turner was a registered sex offender, having been convicted of criminal sexual conduct with a minor in 1998.
Viability of California's sex-offender law in doubt
The lifetime GPS monitoring of Prop. 83 too costly and complex to fully implement.
By Michael Rothfeld, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 27, 2007
SACRAMENTO -- -- Law enforcement leaders who pushed for a ballot initiative requiring sex offenders in California to be tracked by satellite for life are now saying that the sweeping surveillance program voters endorsed is not feasible and is unlikely to be fully implemented for years, if ever. ... Under the measure, approved overwhelmingly a year ago, sex offenders must be strapped with global positioning system devices that can record their whereabouts even after they finish parole and leave the criminal justice system. ...
The difficulties include the impracticality of tracking sex offenders who no longer must report to parole or probation officers, the lack of any penalty for those who refuse to cooperate with monitoring and the question of whether such widespread tracking is effective in protecting the public. ... the law does not specify which agency or government should monitor felony sex offenders -- and shoulder hundreds of millions of dollars a year in related costs. ...
...GPS is more effective for acting on tips about potential crimes or investigating incidents that have already occurred than for blanket monitoring that reveals a location as a blip on a map but not what the subject is doing there. ...
Janet Gaard, an assistant state attorney general, told colleagues that Proposition 83 appeared to be "a flawed law," ..."We have the ability to persuade the public and say, 'Maybe we made a mistake,' " Gaard said. ...
State officials say 500 to 700 more sex offenders leave prison each month ... and it would take nearly $90 million a year just to track the 9,000 now on parole if all were subject to Proposition 83. Full Story [Ed: Senator Runner and the Governor didn't think this through first? They were just pandering to public ignorance and vindictiveness? What a surprise!!
Solution: Put R.S.O.'s in trailers to be moved regularly around the county
Suffolk County to Keep Sex Offenders on the Move
By COREY KILGANNON, New York Times
Suffolk County officials have long searched for ways to provide temporary housing for homeless sex offenders... Now officials of this county on Long Island say they have a solution: putting sex offenders in trailers to be moved regularly around the county, parked for several weeks at a time on public land away from residential areas and enforcing stiff curfews.
The trailers will be moved from one undisclosed spot to the next “every one to two weeks, three at the most,” Mr. Blass said. Officials will select sites on county-owned land, often bordering commercial and industrial-zoned areas. Under county law, offenders must not live within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, day care centers or nursing homes.
“They will be located in large, undeveloped areas away from communities,” Mr. Blass said, adding that by law he could not reveal the locations. ... By switching spots frequently, county officials hope to avoid offenders’ getting too accustomed to one area and settling there in numbers. ...It’s an attempt to prevent saturation.” ... Kate Browning, a county legislator from Shirley, who has been an outspoken critic of clustering sex offenders, said the plan would “spread them around so that every area has their fair share of the burden.” Full Story [Ed: The scary thing is, these people are serious!]
Mob Rule: Group pickets restaurant over placement of sex offender
Parolee's home is owned by proprietor of Racine eatery; owner of another restaurant leading the protest
BRENDAN O’BRIEN, Journal Times
RACINE — Darcy Powell lives in a gray, nondescript house surrounded by a well-kept yard on a dead-end street.
There is no name on his mailbox. There is no car in the driveway. There is no sunlight that enters his house since the white shades are kept closed and down.
The dwelling he lives in is among four other houses on a roadway on the northwest edge of Kenosha County in the Town of Somers. On the other side of the two-lane road, there is a small basketball hoop in a driveway, a trampoline in a backyard and an assortment of children’s playthings.
Powell, who was convicted of two counts of second-degree sexual assault of a child and two counts of incest with a child in 1996, preyed on children for years. He now lives in the clutches of the state’s Chapter 980, a program that binds convicted sex offenders to a tightly supervised life outside of prison.
“He is living in his own little prison,” his mentor, Terry Maack, the deacon of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kenosha, said Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t talk ... I am not allowed to,” Powell said at his home Sunday.
Maack indicated that Powell, who was released in 2005, is monitored by two tracking bracelets and cannot leave his house without being accompanied by a mentor. He is also given random 3-hour lie detector tests; is not to purchase, possess or consume drugs or alcohol; and is to have no contact with minors, the victims or victims’ families.
“He has 49 regulations that he has to live by, day to day, and he has never missed one fraction. He is trying and he realizes what he did was terrible and horrible,” said Maack, who described Powell as a model parolee. “The man’s penance is going to be for the rest of his life ... losing his family, knowing what he did and being shunned by society.” Full Story
U.K. Uses "SOPO" Laws To Impose Restrictions On "Paedophiles"
Registered sex offender downloaded child porn onto mobile phone
07 November 2007
Chester Evening Leader
By Hayley Maguire
A REGISTERED sex offender will be sentenced at Chester Crown Court for downloading child porn onto a mobile phone and breaching a prevention order (S.O.P.O.).
Richard James Hewitt, 31, appeared before Chester, Ellesmere Port and Neston magistrates and admitted two breaches of a sex offenders prevention order (S.O.P.O.) on March 1 and May 4 and 10 charges of making indecent photographs of a child.
Hewitt was placed on the prevention order and sex offenders register in January after being convicted of similar offences at Wrexham Magistrates Court.
The court heard Hewitt, of Law Street, Hoole, was arrested on August 31 and his mobile phone was seized.
Hewitt had been prohibited from using equipment that could download pornographic images, including mobile phones.
He was arrested again on October 31 after indecent images of children were found on the phone and he was remanded in custody.
Catherine Whincup, prosecuting, said 46 images were found on the phone including five level four
indecent videos of children.
Officers found 24 level one photographs, two level two, 11 level three and four level five.
Miss Whincup said: "Two officers in the case visited the defendant's home on two separate occasions prior to his arrest to ask him to give up any mobile phones. Full Story
Sex offenders' addresses do get checked
http://www.sunherald.com/201/v-print/story/202316.html
South Mississippi Sun Herald
Sex offenders' addresses do get checked
By ROBIN FITZGERALD
rfitzgerald@sunherald.com
-- A woman convicted of a sex crime against a child is wanted on a warrant in Harrison County. She's accused of giving a false address in her latest 90-day visit to a state driver's license office.
A sheriff's investigator obtained a warrant for 50-year-old Beatrice Garza Soliz after learning she doesn't live on Bohn Street in Biloxi, said Sheriff's Capt. Ron Pullen.
The owner of the home has never heard of her, according to a Sound Off. The caller blamed the Sheriff's Department for failing to ask for proof to confirm Soliz's address. But that's not the case, said Pullen.
"She was registered with us," Pullen said, "but once she changed her address through the state, they notified us of the change and we updated our records. We just found out that the state Department of Public Safety didn't ask for proof of address and doesn't require proof. We're trying to get them to change that."
DPS spokeswoman Delores Lewis said that's not her understanding of how the state keeps track of where sex offenders live.
"Generally speaking, we do address verification," Lewis said, "but I can't speak to that specific situation. I would have to look into it."
Mississippi requires convicted sex offenders to register with the sheriff's office in the county they move to after serving their time. A law change in 2005 requires them to verify their address in person every 90 days at a state driver's license office.
"We require them to show a power bill, a water bill, a rental agreement or something similar with their name on it when they register with us," said Pullen.
After an offender registers or moves elsewhere in Harrison County, the Sheriff's Department sends out a postcard to notify neighbors.
The state Sex Offender Registry shows Soliz, convicted in 1992 of indecency with a child/sexual contact, in Fresno County, Calif., last verified her address Oct. 24.
"If we send someone to their address and cannot make contact, we take it a step further and send an investigator," said Pullen. "If they don't live there, we don't hunt them down to ask them to register. We get a warrant."
Failing to register or providing a false address is punishable by up to five years in prison.
Anyone who knows of Soliz' whereabouts is asked to call the Sheriff's Department at 865-7060 or the nearest police department. Records show Soliz has used similar names, including Beatriz and Gutierrez as first or last names.
City's Mayor, A Registered Sex Offender, Can't Work In City Hall Due to Nearby Youth Center
Thursday , November 22, 2007
POTEET, Texas —
The mayor of this South Texas town is a registered sex offender who can be arrested for going to City Hall, but he still doesn't plan to resign.
Donato is required to stay more than 1,000 feet from places where children congregate, and City Hall is "well within 200 feet" of that limit from the Atascosa Boxing Club and Youth Center, City Attorney Frank Garza said.
"It's a huge issue," Hudson said. "The mayor of the city cannot attend city business because of his status as a registered sex offender." Full Story
[Ed: I predict that we will eventually realize every conceivable and absurd possible consequence of residency and mobility restrictions. This is just the beginning...]
No "Loitering", No "Living" in Lexington, GA
Ordinance would be tougher than one just ruled unconstitutional in Georgia
Robert Kittle, WSPA-TV, Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007
The Town of Lexington is about to propose an ordinance that severely limits where sex offenders could live, even though the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled unconstitutional a similar law in that state.
Georgia's law banned sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, daycare centers, churches, playgrounds, parks and anywhere else children gather. The Lexington, SC proposal, coming up at its town council meeting December 3, would ban sex offenders from living or loitering within 2,500 feet of those places. Full Story [Ed: Hmm... Does this mean that sex offenders can start withholding taxes they pay for public services they can no longer legally utilize?]
Finally, Some Reason To Give Thanks In Georgia
New York Times, November 22, 2007
Georgia Justices Overturn a Curb on Sex Offenders
ATLANTA, Nov. 21 — The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law Wednesday that limited where registered sex offenders could live, ruling that the statute was so restrictive it unconstitutionally deprived the offenders of their property rights.
The law, described when it was adopted in 2006 as the nation’s toughest restriction on sex offenders, prohibited them from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches or any other place that children might congregate, including more than 150,000 school bus stops in the state. The ban applied even when a school, a church or the like opened in an area where an offender was already living.
“Under the terms of that statute, it is apparent that there is no place in Georgia where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected,” said the seven-member court’s opinion, written by Presiding Justice Carol W. Hunstein.
The court ruled that the statute violated Fifth Amendment protections against the public taking of private property without compensation. ...
... Mr. Mann said in a telephone interview that the court’s decision brought great relief.
“You live kind of every day wondering if the sheriff’s office is going to come out and tell you that you have three days to move,” Mr. Mann said. “It’s happened to me twice.”
Mr. Mann said he had challenged the law to protect his family, but also because he had felt he was being unfairly punished for the sake of political pandering.
Full Story
Police alert residents to predatory sex offender running bike shop
[Ed: What's Next? He starts to Pay Taxes? Other bicycle shop owners must be delirious. Thank God "Bend Weekly" is playing its part in keeping kids safe!]
"Bend Weekly", Nov 21,2007
Police alert residents to predatory sex offender running bike shop
by Cheryl McDermott
Police alert residents to predatory sex offender running bike shop
Nov 21,2007 00:00 by Cheryl McDermott
The Oregon City Police Department is alerting businesses and residents that a convicted sex offender who preyed on boys and girls aged 9-to-15 has applied for a business license and is currently running a bicycle shop on Main Street.
Harry Alan Garret, 54, was convicted of first-degree sex abuse and third-degree sodomy in 2000, crimes that involved children, both male and female, between 9 and 15, police reported.
According to a news release, Garret was designated a predatory sexual offender by the Oregon State Police Sex Offender Unit, and officers are alerting businesses and residents in the area surrounding the bicycle shop at 724 Main Street.
Garret, a 54-year old white male who is described as 5-feet 5-inches tall weighing 180 pounds, has blue eyes and is balding with light brown hair. He has applied for a business license, but is open for business while the license is under consideration, the release stated.
Quebec says no to provincial sex offender registry
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
CBC News
The Quebec government will not create a public registry of convicted sex offenders in the province because it may spur vigilante justice, the provincial justice minister said.
Opposition party Action Démocratique du Québec presented a petition Wednesday with more than 62,000 signatures demanding a public registry for convicted sex offenders.
Justice Minister Jacques Dupuis was swift to dash hopes of a public registry, citing concerns about vigilantism and the potential of people hunting down offenders after they're released from prison.
"We absolutely know that that was the case in some instances in the United States, where the registry was made public," he said. Full Story
Analysis: Sex offenders often homeless
U.S.A. Today
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Many convicted sex offenders are homeless and living in tents, woods and on the street, a USA Today analysis published Monday said.
In Boston, nearly two-thirds of 136 high-risk sex offenders are homeless, while in New York City, more than 100 reported living at shelters, the report said.
Sex offenders, who are required to register with police, have difficulty finding a landlord who will rent to them and often are prevented by law from living near children. Those factors increase homelessness and make sex offenders difficult to track.
In its investigation, USA Today found at least a dozen states list hundreds of sex offenders as homeless, including California which registered 2,716 as "transient." Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois and Maine were among the states where the number of transient sex offenders was rising.
Laura Rogers, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department told the newspaper that homeless sex offenders aren't necessarily more dangerous than those with housing.
"The people you need to be worried about most are the ones who aren't registering at all," Rogers said.
Saginaw Texas Limits Sex Offenders To Living In 1 Of 10 Houses
Saginaw shows no neighborly feelings for sex offenders
By BUD KENNEDY
Star-Telegram staff writer
Saginaw is scared. So scared, apparently, that the City Council has done something foolish -- and maybe expensive. The council voted two weeks ago to approve a map that effectively zones two neighborhoods where convicted sex offenders can move into the city -- and nowhere else.
More precisely, the council created giant "child safety zones" across nearly the entire city of 18,500 people. The zones force sex offenders into about 100 houses on the north or southeast edges of town.
That's not all.
Saginaw also did something else almost unheard of. The city told convicted sex offenders that even if they pick one of those 100 houses, they can't move within 500 feet of where another sex offender lives.
In other words, the way I read the map, Saginaw has basically banished sex offenders from all but about 10 houses. That means that Saginaw will be diverting sex offenders to other cities and into rural Tarrant and Wise counties, which don't have the same power. Full Story
Fed Appeals Court Upholds GPS Device/Scarlet Letter Combo
By KRISTIN M. HALL
Associated Press
Tracking devices used to monitor sexual offenders in Tennessee are not intended as additional punishment, a federal appeals court has ruled.
A three-judge panel voted 2-1 in Friday's ruling that the constitutional rights of a Knox County sex offender, identified in the case as "John Doe," were not violated.
But in a dissent, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove said the global positioning system device that must be worn at the waist outside of clothing [Ed:?!] amounts to a symbol of his crime — a modern-day "scarlet letter."
Doe was convicted and sentenced for aggravated kidnapping and sexual battery before the new laws took effect. He claimed the state couldn't retroactively reclassify him as a violent sex offender.
Full Story
http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/NEWS03/711170360/1017/NEWS
Sex Offender Limits "to Enter Buildings" Considered by Brookfield, WI To Somehow Make Sense
Brookfield aldermen back housing curbs
By BRANDON LORENZ
Special to the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Nov. 15, 2007
Brookfield - The Common Council's Legislative and Licensing Committee on Thursday night revised, and unanimously recommended approval of, an ordinance preventing sex offenders from moving within 1,500 feet of places where children gather.
If the council approves the measure, sex offenders would be prevented from moving into about 90% of the city's residential units, according to city data.
At issue Thursday was language that would require sex offenders to obtain permission from building owners to enter temporarily into restricted areas where children could gather, such as churches or schools.
But with similar restrictions enacted in most of the city's neighboring communities, some aldermen expressed fears that Brookfield could become an island where sex offenders would relocate.
Full Story
Nun Pleads No Contest in Sex Abuse
CATRIN EINHORN, New York Times
A Roman Catholic nun pleaded no contest yesterday to two counts of indecent behavior with a child in connection with accusations from the 1960s when she was a principal and teacher at a Catholic school in Milwaukee.
The nun, Norma Giannini, 79, faces up to 20 years in prison for what prosecutors say was sexual abuse of two male students.
Although dozens of nuns have been accused of sexual abuse, often in civil lawsuits, Sister Giannini is one of the first to face criminal charges, said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a group that compiles reports about abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
Mary Pat Fox, president of Voice of the Faithful, a lay group formed in response to the Catholic sexual abuse scandal, said she hoped the case would encourage more victims of nuns to come forward. “I think this is the tip of the iceberg,” Ms. Fox said.
According to a criminal complaint filed by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office, Sister Giannini repeatedly assaulted the two boys while they were in middle school at St. Patrick School. The complaint said the assaults included intercourse and occurred in numerous locations, including a convent and a classroom. Full Story Ed: Apparently, they're running out of priests. Seriously, though, does it trouble anyone else that we are seeing yet another big scare that is said to be "the tip of the iceberg"?
Head Found, Teens Arrested in 'Thrill Kill' Death of Decapitated Sex Offender
Monday , November 12, 2007
Fox News, Detroit
Two teens have been charged in the brutal decapitation death of a registered sex offender in Michigan whose headless body was left to burn in a subdivision in what prosecutors are calling a "thrill kill."
Not guilty pleas were entered Monday in Romulus District Court for Jean-Pierre Orlewicz, 17, and Alexander James Letkemann, 18, on one count each of first-degree premeditated murder, felony murder and mutilation of a corpse in the death of 26-year-old Daniel Gene-Vincent Sorensen.
"A crime like this surprises us all," Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said at a press conference. "Any time anyone kills just because they want to — and that's what the evidence seems to suggest here — is bone-chilling. Why anybody would want to do that, especially being 17 years old, it makes us think and ask a lot of questions about our society." [Ed: This crime is not at all surprising and the state is complicit in this violence through its inflammatory use of sex offender websites, flyers and community notification]
Prosecutors allege the men lured Sorensen to the Canton Township home of Orlewicz's grandfather.
"They lured him in the garage where they prepared a space to kill him," Worthy said.
A tarp had been spread on the garage floor, and Sorenson was stabbed multiple times in the back. His head was sawed off and his body wrapped in the tarp, authorities said.
There, on a tarp they allegedly spread out for the attack, they slit Sorensen's throat with a knife and repeatedly stabbed him before cutting off his head with a hacksaw, prosecutors said.
They allegedly used a blowtorch on his hands and feet in an attempt to remove his fingerprints, officials said.
His torso was driven in a pickup truck and dumped in a Northville Township cul-de-sac where it was set on fire with gasoline. A utility crew found it the next morning, police said.
His head was dumped in the Rouge River near the border between Dearborn Heights and Detroit. It was found Saturday.
"They made plans on how they were to clean up the blood," Worthy said. "They made plans on how they were going to dispose of the body. No matter how malicious we all think it may be, it was very thought out and very methodical."
"I want to put a face to these people," Sorensen's father, Jim, told MyFOXDetroit on Sunday. "And if it’s a friend I want to know who would call themselves friend and do this to my son."
Sorenson was convicted in Tazewell County, Ill., when he was 17 of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, said Northville Township police Lt. Greg Rhodes. His troubled past had nothing to do with the murder, Worthy said. Full Story
As Frank Valado Lay Dying...
Mike St. Martin reports on the death of Frank Valado at Coalinga State Hospital. His report recounts Valado's final moments and the seeming indifference with which his life was regarded by California Department of Mental Health staff. Listen To Report
Committing sex offenders is costly, not very effective
By The Daily News
Douglas Allen Alsteen, a repeat sex offender, has done his time. Now he's back in a Cowlitz County courtroom, facing the possibility of indefinite confinement at Washington's Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island.
The violent sexual predator law state prosecutors are hoping will keep Alsteen locked away continues to stir controversy 17 years after its enactment. Critics say the law smacks of double jeopardy and fails to accomplish its expressed purpose, which is to treat violent sex offenders until they no longer pose a threat to society.
According to a recent New York Times report on costs at McNeil Island and civil-commitment facilities at the 18 other states that enacted laws modeled on Washington's, this state pays an average of $127,632 anually for each person committed under the law. That compares to $29,055 annually for each prison inmate. Washington's civil commitment program now has 266 residents. It's budget for fiscal 2007 totals $45 million. Full Story
Burned, Headless Man is ID'd as Child Sex Offender
November 9, 2007
BY BEN SCHMITT, Detroit Free Press
Northville police have identified the burned, headless body found on a cul-de-sac as a River Rouge man who was a registered sex offender.
Northville police, with the assistance of the Michigan State Crime Lab, used a fingerprint Thursday to identify the man as Daniel Sorensen, 26.
Sorensen was registered as a sex offender in Michigan and in Tazewell County, Ill., where records indicate he was convicted of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a victim between 13 and 16 years old. Full Story
Chesapeake ( VA) Wants To Add Community Centers, Parks and Libraries to List of Places Sex Offenders Can't Approach
November 8, 2007
Associated Press & 13News
CHESAPEAKE, Va. (AP) -- Chesapeake leaders want to add community centers, parks and maybe even libraries to the list of places that sex offenders can't approach.
The city plans to ask state legislators to amend the Virginia code to prevent convicted sex offenders from going within 100 feet of any public recreational area, community center or park.
Delegate John Cosgrove is supportive of the effort. He says it's a way to protect children and is "something we should have done a while ago."
"It just didn't make any sense to see that a sexual predator could have that type of access to a place with kids and vunerable folks," Cosgrove told 13News. "So, we need to make sure that that loophole is closed."
Board member Steve Johnson says he has heard of web sites that point predators to parks and recreation centers to find children. Full Story
Ohio Bill Would Make Sex Offenders Display Green License Plates
Thursday, November 08, 2007
A controversial bill to require sex offenders to display neon green license plates is making waves between Ohio lawmakers and law enforcement officials, MyFoxCleveland.com reports.
Prosecutors, sheriffs and police chiefs oppose Kristen’s Law, named for 14-year-old Kristen Jackson, who in 2002 was lured from a fair by a paroled sex offender, murdered and her body dismembered.
They say the perpetrators are smart enough to find other ways to corner their victims and fear the plates will cause vandalism and harassment against the offenders, as well as road rage and traffic hazards. Full Story
15-Year-Old Boy Charged with Failing to Re-Register as S.O.
by Raymond Rivera
11/08/2007 11:12 AM ET
DOVER, Del.- Delaware State Police arrested a 15-year-old Magnolia boy on charges of failure to re-register as a sex offender.
Police say the boy was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Meadowbrook Acres after police received information that he might be in the area. The boy is a tier-two, moderate-risk sex offender stemming from a 2005 fourth-degree rape conviction.
According to authorities, detectives also arrested the boy on an outstanding warrant for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Police say that charge was the result of an Oct. 23 investigation.
The boy was arraigned at Kent County Family Court, and ordered held at the Stevenson House Detention Facility.
Little Elm restricts where sex offenders live and go
The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
© 2007 The Associated Press
LITTLE ELM, Texas — This North Texas town has adopted new rules restricting not only where registered sex offenders can live, but also where they can go.
The Little Elm Town Council on Tuesday approved ordinances covering about 68 percent of the town's land.
Under one ordinance, registered sex offenders can't live within 1,000 feet of places where children commonly gather, such as schools, parks, libraries and day care centers.
A second ordinance prohibits registered sex offenders from going within 1,000 feet of places where children commonly gather. Full Story
Parks Emerging As The New "NO-GO" Destination
"Convicted sex offenders don’t have many advocates, but a recent rush of laws banning them from public parks has called into question just how many civil liberties these people should have to give up." ..."After the town of Woodfin in 2005 became the first municipality in the state [North Carolina] to adopt an ordinance banning sex offenders from public parks, the American Civil Liberties Union sued on the grounds that the prohibition was too broad and allowed for no exceptions." "The ACLU lost the case against Woodfin and a subsequent attempt to appeal was turned down by a North Carolina Court of Appeals in an Oct. 2 decision this year. Since the ordinance was upheld, other towns have moved to adopt their own versions." Full Story
Editor: Keep in mind, they are not talking about residency restrictions here. Now the push is on to "red-line" areas of the community where a registered sex offender can go. How long until we have complete banishment?
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