Advocates say psych hospital newsletters being blocked

7-19-17 New York:

Marked "Return to Sender"

In what advocates characterize as a communications lockdown, newsletters going to sex offenders who are confined in a state-run hospital have been sent back to their publisher unopened with a “Return to Sender” notice.

“A disturbing trend is developing on civil facilities not allowing our newsletter,’’ said Wayne Bowers, who puts out the quarterly CURE-SORT News, which compiles stories about the latest treatment options as well as legal developments pertaining to convicted sex offenders who have completed their prison terms but remain indefinitely locked up in psychiatric hospitals under civil commitment laws.

CURE-SORT are acronyms for prison reform groups behind the newsletters: Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants and Sex Offenders Restored Through Treatment.

State officials say that the newsletters are normally delivered to hospital residents as long as their names are on the envelope. ..Source..

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Polygraph Therapy Faces Scrutiny in Child Porn Case

6-14-17 New York:

MANHATTAN (CN) — After a critical hearing in New York, a spotlight is taking shape on the utility of “therapeutic polygraphs,” a treatment the U.S. probation system has used for decades on sex offenders.

The challenge erupted from a call by Assistant U.S. Attorney Drew Rolle for the court to make sex offender Richard Llanga Moran take a polygraph as a condition of his supervised release.

After serving an 18-month sentence for possessing more than 6,000 photographs and videos of child pornography, Llanga Moran had faced regular therapy sessions as a condition of his five-year term of supervised release.

The therapist he meets with regularly has found Llanga Moran “forthcoming and engaged in sessions,” but prosecutors want a so-called lie-detector test to determine whether Llanga Moran has accepted responsibility for his crime.

Llanga Moran drew the government’s skepticism with his insistence that there is an innocent explanation for the start to his habit. He said he had been trying to download Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” on a file-sharing service, when he stumbled upon the pornography that he found “morbidly intriguing” rather than sexually arousing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Drew Rolle wants a court-ordered polygraph, but U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto appeared reluctant to grant such relief on June 13 after putting a psychiatrist, a probation officer and several attorneys in the hot seat at a three-hour hearing. ..Continued..

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Local sex offender law ruled unconstitutional

4-15-17 New York:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) - A Cheektowaga law created more than a decade ago to serve as a tougher version of New York's sex offender law. Now, it's being called unconstitutional.

Cheektowaga council member Alice Magierski says the local law extended the distance any level sex offender could live from a school or park from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet. The law also casts a wider net on locations to include more kid-friendly destinations.

A state appeals court recently ruled the the local law is unconstitutional, saying it conflicted with state law. Under the ruling, police no longer have the power to enforce the local law, but members of the council say they plan to hold a public meeting to let neighbors decide if the law should stay on the books.

"We have no intent whatsoever that this isn't going to be monitored by the police department...it is absolutely completely monitored but within the guidelines that we now have to follow," Councilwoman Magierski tells 7 Eyewitness News.

Magierski says the law was overturned just a few months ago, and she's unsure what prompted the law to face an appeals court. The public hearing is set for April 25 in Cheektowaga. ..Source.. by Cierra Johnson

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Appeals Court Overturns Most Convictions Against Child Molester

3-29-17 New York:

Prosecutors said the case against 47 year old Shawn Vickers of Batavia was one of the worst cases of child molestation they had ever seen.

Three years ago, Vickers was convicted on five felony charges of child sex abuse. But now, a state appeals court has thrown out four of those convictions. The court ruled that Vickers was not tried on the charges for which he was indicted, even though he had agreed to the changes.

Vickers was originally sentenced to 100 years in state prison. But even with the most serious convictions in Genesee County tossed out, he remains behind bars for molesting children in Niagara County. ..Source.. by Dan Fischer

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Extended Stay for Sex Offenders Angers Court

3-28-17 New York:

MANHATTAN (CN) — Railing against New York prison authorities Thursday, an appeals court said their betrayal of legal obligations to find suitable housing for an indigent sex offender improperly prolonged his sentence.

The offender in question, Miguel Gonzalez, pleaded guilty in 2012 to second-degree rape and was set to be released on Sept. 30, 2014.

“Good time” credits Gonzalez had earned in prison should have let him out in May, but Gonzalez instead had to wait out those four months behind bars because he had failed to find suitable housing.

Under the Sexual Assault Reform Act, Gonzalez is not allowed to live within 1,000 feet of a school or any place where children congregate during his probation. The Department of Corrections and Community Supervision interpreted this statute a little more than three years ago to include homeless shelters falling within that distance.

As The New York Times reported at the time, this rule has had a “profound effect in New York City, where only 14 of the 270 shelters” are eligible to intake sex offenders. There are dozens of sex offenders like Gonzalez who have been forced to stay in prison beyond their release dates because the law’s residency restrictions.

When Gonzalez’s sentence expired on Sept. 30, and he still had no place to go, the state transferred him to an approved residential treatment facility that happened to be another prison, Woodbourne Correctional Facility. A grievance that Gonzalez filed in October was still pending when he was released in February 2015 to a Manhattan homeless shelter that met the state’s requirements.

Though an Albany court later said Gonzalez’s release had mooted his petition, an appellate panel criticized the corrections department this morning for a problem the judges say is “all too common.”

Even by its explanation of why Gonzalez remained behind bars, the department “expressly acknowledge[s] that many others are in the same position, particularly in the New York City metropolitan area,” Judge Elizabeth Garry wrote for the 3-2 court.

“The ultimate placement obtained was one of only four authorized homeless shelters in New York City that accept individuals subject to SARA restrictions,” the 8-page opinion continues. “We agree with petitioner that, due to the ‘recognized difficulty in securing acceptable housing’ for persons subject to sex offender residency restrictions, there is a likelihood of repetition regarding individuals being placed in RTFs due to the failure to secure suitable housing.”

Corrections officials turned down each of 58 potential houses that Gonzalez proposed, and the department provided only one alternative in return. The monthly fee at that Staten Island-based facility was too high, however, so Gonzalez had to turn it down.

Judge Garry emphasized that the court cannot dictate what the department should have done to help Gonzalez find housing.

“Nevertheless, its passive approach of leaving the primary obligation to locate housing to an individual confined in a medium security prison facility 100 miles from his family and community, without access to information or communication resources beyond that afforded to other prison inmates, falls far short of the spirit and purpose of the legislative obligation imposed upon DOCCS to assist in this process,” the opinion states.

Judges Michael Lynch and Sharon Aarons joined the majority, but Judge Robert Rose joined a dissent by Judge William McCarthy.

“It was not irrational to assist petitioner by proposing such a residence merely because he was ultimately unable to avail himself of the opportunity due to programing restrictions and cost,” McCarthy wrote in reference to the expensive Staten Island program.

Legal Aid Society attorney Robert Newman, who filed a class action addressing this issue last year in Albany, estimated in a phone interview that between 70 and 100 inmates have been held in residential treatment facilities for lack of housing.

“Throughout a period of more than 18 months, the number of persons in DOCCS-designated RTFs has hovered around 80,” Newman’s class action states. “At the end of July 2015, it increased to 95. The median length of stay in the RTF prior to release was 61 days, but nine inmates had been in the RTFs for more than six months.”

With that case still pending, Newman hoped today’s decision would give his clients a boost.

“We’re very glad that the Third Department has recognized the very difficult situation that our clients are facing,” he said in an interview. “We’re hoping that DOCCS will now change and improve its practices in compliance with this decision.”

Gonzalez’s lawyer and the New York Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to email requests for comment. ..Source.. by ADAM KLASFELD

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Kim Kardashian bares nipples, boobs on New York street in sheer top

9-9-2016 New York:

Like nude Orlando Bloom, KIm Kardashian's public nudity was no nip slip: unlike Anthony Weiner, Kardashian isn't branded a sex offender.

#Kim Kardashian, known for her #nude selfies, took her #nudity to the streets. Kardashian flashed nipples and boobs on a New York street in a braless sheer top. This was no accidental nip slip--Ms. Kardashian-West purposely went nude in public, brassy as you please.

And tackiness aside, Kim's public exposure begs that question that if she was a guy, would she be arrested as a sex offender?

The actual images of Kardashian in her see-through blouse cannot be shown in this article as they would constitute pornography. Even her nude selfies would violate FCC laws without the black band. Should women who flaunt their nipples be cited with a public indecency offense? ..Continued.. by Marilisa Sachteleben

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Enhanced DMV facial recognition system leads to 100 arrests

8-30-2016 New York:

A man accused of filing for a driver’s license under a stolen identity, claiming to have never had a suspended or revoked license, turns out to have been arrested four times for alcohol-related offenses.

Another gaggle of alleged identity thieves – nearly two dozen – tweaked their names and dates of birth in order to get new taxpayer IDs with which they then got new licenses: a way to avoid paying higher insurance rates and/or skirt the fact that their old licenses had been suspended or revoked.

Those are just two of New York’s bragging rights, out of a total of more than 3,800 arrests for possessing multiple driving licenses that the state’s made since it implemented facial recognition technology in 2010.

And that’s only the beginning. Last week, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that refining the facial recognition program at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (NY DMV) has led to more than 100 arrests and 900 open cases since the enhanced system was launched in January.

The new system doubles the number of measurement points mapped to each digitized driver photograph – from 64 to 128 – to “vastly” improve the system’s ability to match a photograph to one that already exists in the DMV’s database.

The system also allows for the ability to overlay images, invert colors, and convert images to black and white to better see scars and identifying features on the face.

Different hair styles, glasses, and other features that change over time – including those that evolve as a subject ages – do not prevent the system from matching photographs.

The facial recognition program is designed to combat identity theft and fraud and to remove high-risk drivers from the roads.

Since 2010, some 10,800 facial recognition cases have been solved administratively, without the need for an arrest, according to the governor.

The announcement quotes Cuomo:

Facial recognition plays a critical role in keeping our communities safer by cracking down on individuals who break the law.

New York is leading the nation with this technology, and the results from our use of this enhanced technology are proof positive that its use is vital in making our roads safer and holding fraudsters accountable.

Reporting back in 2013, Police Chief magazine said that New York’s database of faces held about 21 million records, all with facial images.

At that time, there were 7,000 new photos being taken daily. Before any of those people gets a new driver’s license or non-driver ID, the DMV uses the facial recognition system to check their newly captured likeness against its big face database.

As of July 2015, at least 39 states were using facial recognition and reporting “remarkable” results, according to Governing magazine.

That includes populous Eastern states such as New York, with its thousands of arrests of identity fraudsters, and even a sparsely peopled state such Nebraska, which has arrested hundreds.

According to Ars Technica, New York’s DMV photo database isn’t among those forwarded to the FBI’s recently uncovered, massive face recognition database, which a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found has 30 million civil and criminal mug shot photos, along with the State Department’s Visa and Passport databases, the Defense Department’s biometric database, and the drivers license databases of at least 16 states.

In total, The FBI’s so-called Facial Analysis, Comparison, and Evaluation (FACE) Services unit has access to some 411.9 million images, most of which are of US people and foreigners who have committed no crime, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. ..Source.. by Lisa Vaas

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Court Untangles Offender-Housing Headache

1-24-16 New York:

ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) - New York's appellate division rapped the state Department of Corrections for making a sexually violent offender spend eight more months behind bars after he completed his sentence because he could not find suitable housing or an approved treatment center.

"We are mindful that the dilemma presented is no doubt a consequence of the difficulty in finding acceptable housing for sex offenders," Judge Michael Lynch wrote Thursday for a five-person panel of the Appellate Division's Third Judicial Department.

Though "public safety unquestionably remains the primary concern," Lynch also emphasized the importance in reducing recidivism, an interest that is helped by providing offenders "with suitable housing and employment."

William Green, the former inmate who brought the issue to a head, has been out of prison for three months now, but Lynch said his case presented a significant issue that "will typically evade appellate review and is likely to recur given the prevalence of mental health issues among the state's prison population and the recognized difficulty in securing acceptable housing for risk level III sex offenders.

Sullivan Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison, officially released Green on Feb. 17, 2015, but Green was forced to remain behind bars because he could not find a place to live.

Having been convicted of attempted sexual abuse, endangering a child, and two counts of unlawful imprisonment, Green is classified in New York as a high-level sex offender, required to find housing at least 1,000 feet away from any schools and to permanently register in the state's public directory.

The prison did not release Green to an approved residence until after the Sullivan County Supreme Court ordered that Green receive assisted-outpatient treatment.

Green, a level-III risk, is considered a high risk of repeat offense and a threat to public safety.

Though the court had Green moved, it denied his habeas petition, citing Green's failure to secure suitable housing.

As to why the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) did not transfer to a residential treatment facility, the lower court said such a transfer depended upon pending medical clearance by the Office of Mental Health.

In explaining its hold on Green, the DOCCS told the court that it never completed Green's transfer to a residential treatment center called Woodbourne Correctional Facility because the facility could not handle Green's "mental health needs."

The appeals court found Thursday that Green should have been placed at Mid-State Correctional Facility, which is considered a holding treatment facility for parolees.

The court saw "no convincing authority" for failing to transfer Green to either approved residence or to a treatment facility when his sentence expired.

"Accordingly, we reiterate that, although petitioner is obligated to identify suitable housing, DOCCS remains statutorily obligated to assist in the process," the ruling concludes. ..Source.. by NICK RUMMELL

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Duane Moore, sex offender, to get $37G from Suffolk, Southampton for legal fees

1-14-16 New York:

Suffolk County and Southampton Town officials have agreed to reimburse a man for legal fees after he waged a seven-year battle to overturn local restrictions regarding where he and other sex offenders can live.

Federal court records show the case was dismissed Dec. 10 after the county and town agreed to each pay $18,750 — a total of $37,500 — to go toward Duane Moore’s attorney fees.

Moore, 56, of Southampton, sued Suffolk and Southampton in 2009, alleging that local laws dictating where sex offenders can live in relation to schools and playgrounds were so vague and restrictive they amounted to “banishment.”

Moore’s attorneys argued, among other claims, that New York State’s sex offender residency laws superseded the county’s and town’s restrictions.

They were proved right in February 2015, when the state’s highest court ruled in a separate case that local governments cannot impose their own conditions on where sex offenders reside. The decision effectively invalidated more than 100 local restrictions across the state, including those in Nassau, Suffolk and Southampton.

Michael Diack, a sex offender living in Nassau County, filed the case that led to that ruling, which prompted a federal judge to rule in Moore’s favor in April.

“I can tell you that the people who work with offenders almost uniformly despise these ordinances,” Bruce Barket, Moore’s Garden City-based attorney, said in an interview Wednesday.

“They do nothing to protect the public and they make it much more difficult for the offenders to reintegrate into society and live law-abiding lives.”

Southampton Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said he was not sure about the future of the town’s laws.

“The town’s law was stronger than the state’s law, and this is the resolution, basically,” Schneiderman said Thursday. “I think the question remains whether the town will take its law off the books or simply not enforce it. I don’t have an answer to that right now.” ..Source.. by Will James

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FBI breaks down sex offender stereotypes

FBI FAILS to quote statistic correctly! See area in green below.

10-19-15 New York:

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)- The creepy man lurking near a playground has taken on a new shape.

Now, it’s more often the smooth-talking Facebook friend or the intriguing Instagram follower.

“With the advent of the internet, the game has changed. Now anyone with internet connection anywhere in the world is potentially a predator, and can reach out and prey on our children,” said FBI Supervisory Special Agent, Jeremy Bell.

Special Agent Bell told News 4 most sexual predators use the internet and social media to reach their victims.

He said one of the biggest misconceptions is that predators need to be near their victims to cause harm.

Another misconception? Predators are strangers.

“We often see those individuals that prey on children are close to them, they put themselves in a position to have access to children,” said FBI Special Agent In Charge, Holly Hubert.

She’s been working to bring down sex offenders for 23 years.

Special Agent Hubert said the “stranger danger” mentality exists for a reason, but it’s not the brunt of sex crimes against children.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice:

• Only 10 percent of child sex predators are strangers to the victim.
• 60 percent are known to the victim socially (i.e. neighbor, coach, teacher, babysitter)
• 30 percent of predators are related to the children they abuse.

“They’re able to manipulate the children because there is a family situation and they have so much access to the child that they psychologically manipulate them and they groom them so to speak, long before the abuse even happens,” Hubert told News 4.

That manipulation is part of the reason why so few sex crimes against children are reported.

And the recidivism rate for offenders is high; according to national statistics, compared to non-sex related criminals, sex offenders released from state prisons are four times more likely to be arrested for a sex crime again.

While the quote is correct, it is only part of the study. When you convert the 4-to-1 to actual numbers, it reveals, for every ONE sex offense by a released sex offender, there are SIX by released non-sex offenders! Who is more dangerous to the community? Non Sex Offenders. See chart & explanation HERE.

Bringing these offenders to justice is an uphill battle, but the FBI is constantly upping its game.

Locally the Child Exploitation Task Force, comprised of the FBI, Cheektowaga Police Department, Buffalo Police Department, and the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office, works to stay ahead of the game when it comes to combating online predators, and catching those in Western New York. ..Source.. by Jenn Schanz, News 4 Reporter

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Facebook and NY Attorney General Battle Sex Trafficking

10-10-15 New York:

Facebook and the New York Attorney General have formed a prolific crime-fighting partnership. The two have teamed up to find missing children and curb illegal gun sales. Now the Batman and Robin of Gotham justice are working on a new plan to battle online sex trafficking.

The latest partnership hopes to use Facebook's mountains of user and ad data to identify human traffickers and child victims of sex trafficking.

Officer Facebook

Facebook has never been a company to shy away from police assistance. What you do on Facebook can be criminal, and Facebook has been willing to hand user data over to police (though not as willing to give it to criminal defendants). As for the latest initiative, Facebook's director of state public policy Will Castleberry said the social media company "is pleased to be working with Attorney General [Eric T.] Schneiderman on his efforts to combat the scourge of human trafficking."

According to the Attorney General's press release, that work will "leverage technology to identify victims of sex trafficking in online advertisements for commercial sex, and pursue the traffickers that engage in this practice of modern day slavery. The initiative will focus, in particular, on identifying child victims of sex trafficking, including those who are reported as missing." ..Continued.. by Christopher Coble, Esq.

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Manhattan Resident Develops iPhone App To Track Homeless People

9-27-15 New York:

Murray Hill has a quality of life problem. After growing worried about the neighborhood’s homeless population, residents started a Facebook group to share photos and report incidents they thought might affect public safety or general quality of life. The Village Voice’s Madison Margolin recounts how one of the group’s admins decided to go a step further and built an iOS app called NYC Map the Homeless, making it possible for residents to upload photos of homeless people tied to specific locations and tagged with labels such as “encampment,” “aggressive panhandling,” “NeedsMedicalAid,” and “Threat.”

The app’s creator, 25 year-old engineer David Fox, says he hopes it will bolster data about homeless people in the area. “I’m not living under the impression that completely ignoring homeless people and giving them privacy is somehow helping them live good lives or bringing us any closer to actually helping them,” he told Margolin.

Paradoxically, many residents blame service providers aimed at helping the homeless for the perceived jump in the homeless population. “You can’t just give people a meal and turn them loose on the streets until the next meal if those people are dangerous to the community or if they’re going to go out and urinate, defecate, masturbate, and have sex in public,” Janet Martin, a member of the Facebook group, told Margolin. “That isn’t right.”

Arguments like these point to a fundamental paradox of homelessness. If a person can be defined by their lack of a private residence, then every aspect of their life must, by axiom, take place in public. A person without a home has no choice but to urinate, defecate and masturbate outside of the home. These behavioral outcomes are made inevitable by the social disenfranchisement that comes from wealth. And efforts to criminalize these behaviors as assaults on the quality of life of others can be traced back to the joint development of modern government welfare programs and the lifestyle surveillance that accompanied them.

In a survey examining the American cityscapes over the last 50 years, University of Michigan professor Heather Ann Thompson and Rutgers University professor Donna Murch note how aid programs developed as part of the War on Poverty in the 1970s and 1980s were used as pretext for unannounced home visits to evaluate the living circumstances of aid recipients.

After that practice was abandoned in the mid-70s, a new kind of “redetermination program” was implemented, with scheduled appointments that relied on “forms of state and community surveillance that encouraged neighbors to report recipients as ‘welfare cheats.’” These programs often lead to counterintuitive outcomes in which ”many of the nation’s poorest people [were] subjected to prosecutions that left them further marginalized from the mainstream economy with little hope of legal employment.”

These strategies had been particularly effective at introducing social divisions in communities previously unified through mutual mistrust of the police. “In place of an antipolice violence coalition between African Americans and white gay radicals in the 1970s,” Thompson and Murch write, “by the 1980s and 1990s, gay politics instead centered on reforms, such as the recruitment of gay and lesbian police officers and the monitoring of hate crimes and antigay violence, that could more readily coexist with enhanced policing.”

“This paved the way for more recent conflicts, like that around Chicago’s ‘Take Back Boystown’ movement, that pit comparatively affluent white gays and lesbians against African Americans and other residents of color.”

The idea of “quality of life” emerged during this same period in the 1970s, first as a generalized measure for healthcare outcomes and later as a figurehead for the progressive politics underwriting the Wars on Poverty, Drugs, and Crime. In “Origins of the Concept of Quality of Life in Health Care: A Rhetorical Solution to a Political Problem”, David Armstrong and Deborah Caldwell of Kings College describe quality of life as a response to “a void created by the perceived narrow successes of high technology medicine.”

Technological developments in healthcare had made it possible to extend a person’s lifespan, but often at great expense and accompanied by substantial suffering. Quality of life measures became a counterweight to a singular clinical fixation on neutralizing disease by attempting to acknowledge the subjective experience of the patients.

Given this history, there’s a monstrous reversal of values in using quality of life as justification for community surveillance of the homeless. Instead of looking at the ways property and wages can create pathogenic ruptures between neighbors, quality of life arguments justify the criminalization of those suffering most from the dysfunctional politics of the rich. It turns people into vectors of poverty, suggesting their immiseration must have been caused by some pre-existing moral failure.

It’s not quality of life or public safety that’s being protected by civilian surveillance of homeless people, but the unjustifiable vanity that makes such judgements possible. Murray Hill is an expensive neighborhood, the kind of place where rent averages are separated by doorman buildings and non-doorman buildings, with a studio in the latter category going for between $2200 and $2300 a month. It’s also racially homogenous. The 2000 census said it was 76% white and more recent data from 2010 suggests it remains overwhemingly white. Like the Facebook group before it, Fox’s app is less a tool to help those suffering outside the locked doors of Murray Hill apartments than a catalyst for the immoral wealthy to displace their guilt onto a catalog of other people’s frailties.

The right to defecate is fundamental to human society, it’s not a pathology of unproductive lives. In Murray Hill a shitzu on a leash has more rights to a normally functioning digestive system than a human without a lease. This is an evil state of affairs, as mundanely invisible as car exhaust. It’s never enough to have more than another human being, wealth can never feel secure until it creates a moral narrative that justifies otherwise intolerable disparities.

Poverty becomes a personal failing, an aesthetic violation of the Calvinist symmetry between hard work and prosperity. Wealth, on the other hand, can never be personal, but is instead a sign of the divine order of a system working as it should for those fortunate enough to be aligned with it. In that way, NYC Map the Homeless is an augmented reality tool that makes it possible for the better-off to blame everyone else simply for being present. ..Source.. by Michael Thomsen

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I-Team: NYC Tries to Force Shelter to Take 50 Sex Offenders

6-18-15 New York:

The city is trying to force a shelter in Brooklyn to accept 50 sex offenders beginning this week, even though the shelter is not equipped to deal with those types of offenders, in order to abide by a state law that requires many sex offenders to live at least 1,000 feet from schools, the I-Team has learned.

The DOE Fund, a reputable work program that moves its clients into private sector jobs and helps them become self-sufficient, runs the shelter in East Williamsburg and is suing to prevent the city from forcing it to take the sex offenders in.

The fund, led by director Harriet McDonald and her husband, George, who ran for mayor in 2013, runs a work program called Ready Willing & Able, which helps former inmates and the homeless get back on their feet. About 70 percent of its clients have a history of incarceration, the group says, though none of them have records as sex offenders.

The clients work to clean city streets -- many know them as the men in blue often seen picking up garbage and sweeping sidewalk at busy intersections -- and McDonald says that if the city has its way, at least 50 of these men, who are known in the community, would be displaced to make room for the sex offenders.

"They are expecting us to take 50 hardworking men rebuilding their lives, transfer them wherever, so that we take 50 sex offenders in their place," said McDonald, all because the shelter is more than 1,000 away from a school.

McDonald said the city tried two months ago to send her a convicted rapist who had raped three children, ages 3, 5 and 9. He only served five years for those crimes, she said. ..Continued.. by Melissa Russo

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The controversy behind penile plethysmography: why it’s used on convicted sex offenders

4-10-15 New York:

After former NFL player Darren Sharper admitted to drugging and sexually assaulting nine women across four states, he accepted a deal to serve 20 years in prison and be on probation for life.

The most shocking consequence for the former safety for the New Orleans Saints?

He will be forced to undergo penile plethysmograph testing to measure his sexual arousal.

Many convicted sex offenders are required to undergo this testing, which involves strapping a pressure-sensitive device to a man's penis and gauging his reactions to stimulating pictures, video and audio, experts said.

Some experts said sex offenders' responses — especially to "deviant" material — could determine their likelihood of reoffending.

Others contest the merits of penile plethysmography because it's intrusive and not always accurate.

The test works by having sex offenders attach the device, which resembles an arm blood pressure cuff, to themselves in a separate room from a clinician at a doctor's office or in prison.

The device measures blood flow to the penis, either through changes in the volume or circumference, as subjects view stimuli that are tailored to their problems or fetishes, according to guidelines by Oregon's Department of Health.

Pictures and videos show people of different ages and genders partaking in various sexual scenarios and states of undress.

How often the test is conducted depends on the offender.

Orleans Parish Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman told the Daily News he could not comment on how this testing would be conducted with Sharper because he could not discuss open cases.

Some experts claim penile plethysmography can help stop sex offenders from acting on their arousal by pinpointing what they're subconsciously attracted to.

"Once an offender's deviant sexual arousal patterns have been identified, treatment interventions can be introduced which are designed to reduce or eliminate these deviant response patterns," the Council on Sex Offender Treatment wrote.

"Behavioral treatment teaches the offender the sequence of events leading to the commission of his deviant behavior and then provides the offender with specific methods to disrupt the offense cycle."

It's important to know what sex offenders' deviant fantasies are, especially because self-reporting can be inaccurate, they said.

"Those sex offenders with the most deviant phallometry patterns have been found to have the highest recidivism," the Council said, calling it "among the most successful" tactics.

But penile plethysmography can't go as far as conclude whether someone will reoffend, David Samadi, the chairman of urology at Lenox Hill Hospital, told the Daily News.

It does, however, provide useful information on the intensity of offenders' sexual arousal, which is often "off the scale" compared to "normal people," he said.

The testing, developed nearly 50 years ago, is also done on average men to determine their sexual health, especially after prostate cancer or surgery, Salamadi said.

In 2006, a court ruled the procedure was intrusive and a deprivation of liberty for sex offenders after a man convicted of child porn possession sued against having to undergo it as part of his supervised release.

One judge compared the test to something out of George Orwell's "1984."

Statistics on how commonly penile plethysmography is used were not immediately available. Samadi said it's rarely implemented nowadays although other reports say it's common.

Penile plethysmography is "not going to solve the whole problem" of sexual assault without providing sex offenders with psychological help, community support and supervision, Salamadi said.

But it can make people feel safer.

"I think that if you're planning to send sex offenders out there, in order to protect society, you want to make sure they've gone through therapy and are going to be safe," Samadi said. "It's just a small part of big picture." ..Source.. by Rachelle Blidner

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Lox, bagels, juice and sex offenders: Why I invited two pariahs into my home

3-27-15 New York:

Sunday morning at 10 found me slicing the tomatoes and arranging the cheese platter. My husband was setting up the chairs. At 11, the doorbell rang. And so began my very first sex offender brunch.

What exactly is that? It’s a brunch where I invited my friends in the press to meet my friends on the sex offender registry: Josh Gravens, 28, and Galen Baughman, 31. I’ll tell you their crimes in a sec, but first let me explain why this issue interests me.

As founder of the book, blog and movement Free-Range Kids, I am always trying to figure out, as the subtitle of my book says, “How to raise safe, self-reliant children without going nuts with worry.”

I like programs that actually help kids avoid abuse, such as teaching them the three R’s: Recognize (that no one can touch where your bathing suit covers), Resist (kick, scream, run) and Report (tell me if anyone is making you uncomfortable, and I promise I won’t be mad at you).

The three R’s make kids safer and take away an abuser’s biggest asset: a child’s silence.

What I learned through my research, though, is that one thing not making kids safer is the public sex offender registry. Study after study keeps showing two things: First, that “stranger danger” is a myth. The vast majority of crimes against kids are committed by people they know.

Second: In New York State, as elsewhere, there’s been no difference in the number of sex offense arrests before and after implementing the public sex offender registry. And yet, it is very scary to send your kids outside once you see a red dot locating a sex offender on your neighborhood map.

The problem is that the registry is cluttered with people who don’t actually pose a threat to children. So while it’s easy to think “dot= monster,” many registrants are actually teens who had sex with other teens, people who urinated in public, men who visited prostitutes, etc.

A study by the Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, for instance, found that of the 17,000 people on the state’s registry, just over 100 were “predators” compelled to prey on kids. But, of course, all 17,000 dots look alike.

Which brings me to my brunch.

Through my research, I’d met Josh and Galen.

Josh is a Texan who was visiting New York last week. At age 12, he played doctor with his sister. His sister told their mom, their mom called a counseling center to ask what to do, the counselor was a “mandated reporter,” and Josh ended up in juvenile prison for 31/2 years. His “therapy” there consisted of sickening things like acting out sex acts for the therapist. Josh was still a virgin!

Ever since he got out, he has been on the registry, even though his sister has long forgiven him. I wanted my guests to meet him.

I wanted them to meet Galen, too. When Galen was a 19-year-old opera student in Indiana, he met a young man, 14, at a friend’s family party. They started emailing. When the 14-year-old’s mom found out her son was writing to a gay teen, she took his computer to the local district attorney, who gave it to a cop.

The cop continued the online conversation, pretending to be the 14-year-old. He asked Galen to send him gay teen porn, and when Galen complied, he was arrested for distributing kiddie porn. On Galen’s personal computer, cops found evidence that he’d had a sexual encounter (once) with a different 14-year-old. The emails showed it was consensual, but this still constitutes rape.

He went to prison for nine years.

They told their stories to my reporter friends as we ate our brunch. Then everyone went their separate ways, filled with carrot cake to die for, and a new skepticism about just who we label a “sex offender.” ..Source.. by Skenazy is host of the reality show “World’s Worst Mom” on Discovery Life Channel. She is also a public speaker and founder of the book and blog “Free-Range Kids.”

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More Men Fight College Allegations of Sexual Assault

3-20-15 New York:

Lawsuit is one of more than 2 dozen similar suits since start of last year

A former undergraduate student sued Cornell University, alleging the Ivy League school wrongly accused him of forcing himself on a female student.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday by a man referred to as John Doe, is the latest to be brought against a school amid a crackdown on campus sexual assaults. It contends Cornell violated his due-process rights when the school concluded he raped a fellow student after a party in December 2013 and then withheld his diploma.

The suit says the Ithaca, N.Y., university “cherry-picked witness statements,” “ignored important…statements” and judged the credibility of witnesses “without any ascertainable rationale or logic.”

A spokesman for Cornell declined to comment.

Since the start of last year, more than two dozen men have sued colleges and universities over such cases, largely alleging that the schools’ disciplinary processes are stacked against them. The number is a dramatic jump from just a few years ago.

Last week, a Boston College graduate sued the school, saying it failed to give him a fair hearing after accusing him of sexual assault.

A spokesman for Boston College said the school “stands by the findings of its administrators who adjudicated the case, and we intend to defend our decision in court.”

Some of the suits have already fallen flat. But actions brought against Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado led to settlements in which the schools either set aside sanctions or reduced them. Others have led to judicial rulings that questioned whether the schools’ disciplinary processes afford men a fair shake.

In recent years, colleges have made it easier for female students to initiate actions against men they accuse of sexual assault.

In 2011, citing hotly debated statistics that about 1 in 5 women is a victim of “completed or attempted” sexual assault in college, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights set forth new procedures for schools to follow when handling sexual assault and harassment claims.

Among other things, the Education Department recommended that alleged victims be required to prove only that it was “more likely than not” the harassment or violence occurred to hold an accused responsible. ..Continued.. by Ashby Jones

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Putnam DA challenges sex offender risk assessment level

3-11-15 New York:

CARMEL – A Putnam County man, who was about to be released from state prison as a level two non-violent sex offender, will now face the more serious label as a level three offender. He was sentenced to nine years in prison after being convicted in 2006 of several felony sexual abuse counts.

District Attorney Adam Levy’s office challenged the level two classification arguing in State Supreme Court that the seriousness of Christopher Manstrelli’s crimes, lack of remorse, unwillingness to accept responsibility for his crimes, and consistent refusal to take part in sex offender treatment, meant he had a high likelihood of reoffending.

Manstrelli argued he was forced to skip treatment because of disputes he had with prison guards.

The judge did not buy that and raised his offender status to level three, which means Manstrelli will be subject to more intensive monitoring when he is released, and for the rest of his life.

In addition to his home and work addresses being available for public reference, he will have to report both addresses in person every 90 days. Failure to report is a felony. ..Source.. by MidHudsonRadio.com

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Sex Offender's Post-Release Stay in Prison Facility Upheld

3-5-15:

Housing a convicted high-risk sex offender in a prison-based residential treatment facility after he has completed his sentence because there are no legally compliant community shelters is "entirely consistent" with the Sexual Assault Reform Act, a judge has ruled. ..Sub Req.. ...

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Convict invokes Canadian citizenship to avoid charges

3-4-15 New York:

An American man convicted of child sex - who is on a sex offender registry and facing additional child sex and child pornography charges - was granted citizenship in Canada, allowing him to flee even more charges in the United States.

Paul Latina, 37, then tried to use his Canadian status to block his pending extradition to face trial in the United States. Despite Latina's sordid history, Canada could not prevent him from gaining Canadian citizenship because he is the son of a Canadian woman, officials said.

The case adds another layer of concern over what has been termed "Canadians of convenience" - people who obtain Canadian citizenship for selfish reasons, with little or no attachment or contribution to Canada.

The U.S.-born man was convicted in 2003 in Colorado for a child sex offence. As part of his sentence, he was ordered to enrol in a sex offender registration program. He moved to Missouri in 2011.

In 2013, Latina was caught in a police sting, accused of using the Internet to try to lure a 14-year-old girl for sex, court heard. After police searched his house, he was also charged with possessing child pornography.

He was released from jail on a bond while awaiting trial.

Soon after he was notified he had been granted Canadian citizenship. Latina had applied to become a citizen in 2012 - after his first child sex conviction - and was accepted in 2013, after more child sex-related charges were laid.

He did not move to Canada, however, until he was again in trouble with the law. In July 2013, acting on a tip, police searched his home a second time and found more than 20 "lewd and lascivious" photos of nude children, according to charging documents.

A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he was already gone. Within hours of the search, he had cut off the electronic monitoring bracelet he was required to wear and driven into Canada at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, Ont., court heard.

An alert was sent to Canada Border Services Agency officers and when Latina used his debit card in the Toronto area, CBSA issued an immigration arrest warrant, unaware of his new Canadian status.

In Aug. 16, 2013, he was arrested in Milton, Ont. However, within 95 minutes of his arrest - after revealing he was a Canadian citizen - he was released and given a taxi ride home.

U.S. authorities then sought an urgent extradition application and he was arrested again the next day. He has remained in Canadian custody since.

Latina turned to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, claiming his extradition violated his constitutional rights. He went to court asking for a permanent stay of the extradition proceedings, claiming U.S. authorities deliberately concealed his dual nationality to Canadian officials when seeking his arrest.

Ontario Superior Court Judge Kenneth Campbell found no deliberate attempt at a backdoor extradition.

Neither Latina nor his lawyer could be reached for comment. ..Source.. by Adrian Humphreys, National Post

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NY Sex Offender Ruling Sparks Discussion of Law's Real Value

2-23-15 New York:

A decision by New York's highest court striking down dozens of local laws that set boundaries on where convicted sex offenders may live has rekindled a debate over whether such laws really work to protect children.

New York's Court of Appeals ruled unanimously last week that only the state has the power to tell offenders where they can and cannot reside, and generally only while they are on parole or supervised release. The ruling effectively struck down more than 130 local laws across the state, many of which went further than state law by imposing such restrictions on offenders for the rest of their lives.

Some lawmakers and advocates reacted by seeking to strengthen the state law, which currently bars more serious sex offenders on parole or supervised release from being within 1,000 feet any school grounds in a parked car or public areas adjacent to schools.

"We are very concerned," said Laura Ahearn, executive director of a Long Island group called Parents for Megan's Law. "Because certain registrants are no less dangerous the day after they complete their supervision."

But several experts argue such residency restrictions may not provide the protection for children the laws envision.

"The truth is these laws are very popular with politicians and the public and sound good in theory," said Jill S. Levenson, who teaches social work at Barry University in Florida. "There have been numerous studies that show there is no relationship between where a sex offender lives and the likelihood to re-offend."

Levenson added that forcing offenders to scour an area for housing opens them to the possibility of re-offending.

"The best predictor of a successful re-entry into society is stable housing, employment and a social support system," Levenson said. "Policies that disrupt those factors actually increase the likelihood of resuming a life of crime."

Maia Christopher, executive director of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers in Beaverton, Oregon, said it is also important for laws to distinguish between adult and juvenile offenders. She said juvenile offenders are less likely to offend again.

"In some cases, states are putting a lot of resources aimed at those who are the least likely to repeat this kind of offense," she said. "We forget that this is a very complicated issue and there is no silver bullet. ... We can't act like everybody is high risk and can't clump everybody into the same category."

Her organization notes at least 30 states and hundreds of cities have enacted some kind of residency restrictions for sex offenders in the past two decades, but as in the case of the New York court ruling last week, some have since been overturned on constitutional grounds.

Bill O'Leary, a social worker who treats sex offenders on Long Island, said stigmatizing sex offenders and creating an atmosphere of fear over so-called "stranger danger," in which children are accosted by molesters on the street, is not helpful.

"We all grew up hearing about 'stranger danger,' but in most cases children are abused by someone they know, not by strangers," he said.

A Long Island man convicted of second-degree rape in 1994 said he has been homeless for several months and has found it difficult to find housing because of restrictions on where he can live. The man declined to be publicly identified because of the stigma of his rape conviction; he is currently receiving temporary housing through a local social services agency.

"It's a little difficult because I am being shipped around to temporary shelters week to week," said the man, who is required to notify police nightly about his whereabouts because he doesn't have a permanent address where he can be monitored. "I don't blame people for feeling that way," he said of the stigma attached to his crime. "It's my own fault that I put myself in this situation, but I don't think I'm a waste and I know I could do better."

New York's appeals court was ruling specifically on a 2006 Nassau County law that applied the 1,000-foot school rule to all registered sex offenders.

Michael Diack was the only person ever charged with violating the Nassau County law. After being convicted in 2001 of possessing child pornography, he spent after 22 months in prison and a year on parole. When Diack moved to an apartment within 500 feet of two schools after completing parole, he was charged with violating the local residency law.

A trial judge dismissed the charge, saying the local law was pre-empted by the state law. A midlevel court reinstated the complaint. The Court of Appeals on Tuesday dismissed it again.

"There's a lot of other people all over the state that are subjected to these laws and now they're all invalid," said attorney Kathy Manley, who represented Diack. "Most of these people really don't pose a risk."

However, the state law requires some 38,000 convicted sex offenders to keep their addresses and photographs updated in a registry, which is publicly available, about those convicted of more serious crimes. It's searchable by name, zip code or county. More than 300 offenders considered most likely to re-offend have been locked in psychiatric facilities after their prison sentences ended, with another 100 high-risk offenders getting intensive treatment and supervision in communities. ..Source.. by FRANK ELTMAN

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