6-18-17 Pennsylvania:
At the United States Penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa., prisoners with serious mental illness are handed crossword and sudoku puzzles instead of counseling, according to a lawsuit that says prisoners at one of the most violent federal prisons are denied routine mental health care.
The lawsuit also alleges that prisoners at Lewisburg are cut off from the medications they were given at other prisons and housed in small cells, where they often spend up to 24 hours a day with other prisoners, who also often have serious mental illnesses.
Filed on June 9, McCreary v. The Federal Bureau of Prisons says the meager mental health treatment violates the U.S. Constitution's protections against cruel and unusual punishment. It also says the inadequate treatment is in violation of the Bureau of Prisons' own rules, which say men with serious mental illness should, in most cases, be removed from the Special Management Unit for violent prisoners at Lewisburg.
A spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons declined to respond to the lawsuit, saying in an email, "the Bureau of Prisons cannot comment on matters that are the subject of legal proceedings."
Last year, an investigation by NPR and the Marshall Project showed high rates of violence at Lewisburg, where inmate-on-inmate assaults are six times more common than at all federal prisons. The investigation linked the heightened violence to the lack of mental health care, the practice of double-cell solitary confinement — putting two men in one small cell — and the frequent use of restraints. ..Continued..
June 18, 2017
Lawsuit Says Lewisburg Prison Counsels Prisoners With Crossword Puzzles
September 28, 2015
City will pay $50,000 to settle sex offender lawsuit
9-28-15 Pennsylvania:
City Council agreed last week to pay $50,000 toward the settlement of a lawsuit which was filed against the city for discriminating against a registered sex offender.
During a meeting on Monday night, March 16, council voted unanimously to make the payment as part of a proposed $60,000 settlement with Leo Conway, Archbald.
City solicitor Atty. Frank Ruggiero noted that Allied World Assurance Co. will pay the remainder of the amount.
“Under the proposed agreement, the city would pay $50,000 and our carrier would cover the other $10,000 as well as our litigation costs,” he related. “Now that council has voted, we should have the agreement signed and executed within the next few weeks.”
Three years ago, Conway and his son Patrick were removed from a residence they shared on Brooklyn St. because it was located across the street from White Bridge Playground and near the Carbondale Area elementary and high school campus.
Their eviction was prompted by Mayor Justin Taylor's discovery that Patrick had been convicted in 2009 of unlawful contact or communication with a minor, and his subsequent listing on the Megan’s Law Registry.
Under a city ordinance which was in effect at that time, registered sex offenders were prohibited from living within 2,500 feet of any facility or area where children might gather, such as a school, park or playground.
In August of 2013, Conway and his son attended a meeting of City Council, where Conway accused the mayor of targeting his son and forcing them both out of the city.
Having served as a magistrate judge in Wyoming County for 25 years before moving to Carbondale, Conway said his family name had been “defamed.” “We were very happy here,” he recounted. “But then the mayor told me, ‘Pat has to go!’ That was it.”
Conway acknowledged that his son “did wrong,” but insisted “he wouldn’t hurt anybody.” He threatened legal action against the city, arguing that a 2011 state Supreme Court ruling had rendered the city’s ordinance unconstitutional.
A month later, in an attempt to avoid litigation, council introduced and later adopted a revised ordinance relaxing the housing restrictions on registered sex offenders like Patrick Conway who are classified as “non-violent.”
Nevertheless, Conway did file a lawsuit against the city just about a year ago, which claimed that Mayor Taylor and the city acted in a “capricious, unreasonable and discriminatory manner” in enforcing the previous ordinance.
In the suit, Conway argued that his son was among 15 sex offenders who were registered under Megan’s Law and living in the city at the time of the eviction, but Patrick was the only one who was forced to move in order to comply with that ordinance.
Conway said he also informed Taylor of the state Supreme Court ruling in an effort to resolve the situation, but the mayor refused to recognize it. ..Source.. by Tom Flannery
August 20, 2015
Sex offender sues Delco prison, claims illegal detention
8-20-15 Pennsylvania:
MEDIA COURTHOUSE >> A Clifton Heights man is seeking damages of more than $75,000 for what he contends was an illegal detention at George Hill Correctional Facility in Concord following his conviction on child pornography charges.
John Marchetti has alleged claims for false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, violations of due process, cruel and unusual punishment and failure to train against the county, as well as state and local corrections officers.
Prison Solicitor Bob Diorio said he had not been served with notice of the suit as of Wednesday and could not comment. Laura Treaster, an information specialist with the state Board of Probation and Parole, likewise said her office had not been served but that she would be unable to comment on pending litigation.
Marchetti entered a “no contest” plea to one count of sexual abuse of children for possessing child pornography on Feb. 17, 2009 and was sentenced to two to 23 months in prison, according to court records. He was also sentenced to two years of probation after pleading guilty to driving while under the influence and reckless endangerment in an unrelated case. He was resentenced to 18 to 36 months in January 2012 for a probation violation.
The complaint, filed last week in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by attorney Matthew Weisberg, indicates Marchetti completed his child pornography sentence on or about March 29, 2014.
That sentence required Marchetti to enroll in and complete a sexual offender’s program at the prison and “comply with general rules and regulations governing probation and/or parole,” according to court records. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law, but the complaint claims the sentence imposed no sex offender probation or parole requirements.
According to a recording of the 2012 probation violation hearing, however, Judge Patricia Jenkins informed Marchetti that: “During your periods of parole and probation, you must comply with the standard rules of adult probation and parole and, in addition, with the special rules that are enumerated in an order bearing today’s date regarding sexual offenders.”
A copy of that order was not immediately available Wednesday.
The complaint indicates an Altoona parole agent and Chester Adult Probation and Parole Officer Newt Condict refused to allow Marchetti to leave the state correctional institution at Laurel Highlands without accepting additional sexual-abuse related probation requirements.
Two days prior to his release from prison, Marchetti claims the defendants secured a probation violation and detainer against him, then placed him in solitary confinement for one week over his protestations that it would trigger his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Marchetti was then transferred to the county prison in Concord, where he was held in solitary for “several more weeks without any reasonable basis,” according to the complaint.
After his removal from solitary, Marchetti claims he was placed into an area of the prison reserved for mentally unstable prisoners for three weeks, where his allegedly HIV-positive bunkmate smeared the walls with bodily fluids.
The complaint indicates Marchetti was held a total of four months past the maximum of his sexual abuse sentence and suffered a relapse of PTSD. He was released in July 2014 only after signing documents agreeing to additional sex offender probation requirements. Marchetti initially refused to sign, but was told he would not be released without doing so, according to the complaint.
Marchetti says he now lives in fear that he will be returned to the prison on some false pretext that he violated the sex offender requirements of his probation. He has previously claimed to be a target of law enforcement due to his civil rights advocacy organization, Citizens Against Abusive Power Systems.
The complaint is seeking statutory and compensatory damages for financial loss, physical injuries and emotional distress. Marchetti is also seeking costs associated with bringing suit, and injunctive relief in the form of training and monitoring of prison officials. ..Source.. by Alex Rose covers court proceedings for the Daily Times.
August 30, 2013
Inspiration for ‘Masha’s Law’ files class action suit against viewers of child porn images
8-30-2013 Pennsylvania:
A woman whose childhood sexual exploits at the hands of a western Pennsylvania businessman led to Congress enacting legislation commonly referred to as “Masha’s Law” has filed a federal class action lawsuit that may be a first of its kind.
Lawyers representing the woman who previously went by the name Masha Allen filed the class action complaint on Aug. 23 at the U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against men who allegedly viewed pornographic pictures and videos depicting childhood sexual abuse against the plaintiff.
The plaintiff, who is simply listed as Jane Doe in the suit, is a victim of the child pornography trade, having been sexually molested by Michael Mancuso, who is also named as a defendant in the civil action.
According to the complaint and media reports, Mancuso, who is currently imprisoned in New England, repeatedly raped and sexually abused the plaintiff on camera over a period of more than five years, creating what the suit calls a set of “brutal and graphic images that he then distributed and traded with others via the Internet.”
The images, which are still circulating to this day, were allegedly viewed by the named defendants and other similarly situated persons, the lawsuit states.
Images of the plaintiff, who is known to law enforcement and child porn users as “Internet Girl,” “Disney World Girl” and “Angeli,” are among the most widely distributed illegal images of child sexual abuse known to authorities, the lawsuit claims.
The complaint says that each time federal prosecutors file criminal charges against someone for illegally possessing the images of the plaintiff, the woman is sent a notice identifying the perpetrator.
To date, the plaintiff has received more than 2,000 such notices, the suit states.
The defendants in the complaint conspired with each other, and with members of the class, to share and distribute the photos and videos, largely through the “darknet,” which the suit claims is a collection of secure websites, online chatrooms, bulletin board sites and peer-to-peer file-sharing computer networks that communicate through the Internet but are designed to conceal the participants’ personal identifying information, according to the complaint.
“Because the images are illegal, there is no way to obtain copies of them except by seeking out, and becoming trusted by, someone who illegally possesses them,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants operated under an agreement to protect each other’s anonymity, communicating with each other remotely under fictitious usernames.”
The defendants named in the litigation, the suit says, collectively participated in and helped to maintain a black market that “incentivized and facilitated the copying, trading, and distribution of illegal images of child sexual abuse, including images of Plaintiff, all in violation of the statutes for which Masha’s Law creates a private right of action.”
U.S. lawmakers used the plaintiff’s tale as inspiration for the passage of the 2006 law formally known as the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.
The statute is often referred to as Masha’s Law.
The plaintiff’s lawyers wrote that the approximately 200 hundred original images of their client has since grown “exponentially into millions of copies distributed worldwide.”
“Scarred by years of brutal exploitation, she now must also bear the humiliating knowledge that untold numbers of men, such as Defendants, continue to take sadistic pleasure in viewing and distributing graphic visual depictions of her pain and degradation,” the lawsuit states.
The suit notes that Congress has provided that a plaintiff who establishes a claim under Masha’s Law is able to recover a minimum of $150,000 in damages from each defendant in a civil case.
If her case went to trial, there’s no telling how much damages the plaintiff could be looking at given that the case is being filed as a class action.
The plaintiff is a Russian native who had been adopted by Mancuso when she was 5 years old, the record shows.
Mancuso adopted the girl specifically for the purpose of sexually abusing her and using her to create child pornography, the suit claims.
Most of the abuse against the plaintiff took place at Mancuso’s Pennsylvania home, the complaint says, although some images were created in Florida on an annual trip to Disney World, hence one of the nicknames given to the girl.
The complaint says that each of the named defendants has pleaded guilty or otherwise been convicted of a federal criminal offense involving the receipt and/or distribution of illegal images depicting child sexual abuse against the plaintiff.
The plaintiff seeks compensatory damages of no less than $150,000 per defendant, unspecified punitive damages, pre-and-post-judgment interest, attorney’s fees and costs.
The woman is being represented by Philadelphia attorney Michael A. Ferrara, Jr., and Georgia lawyers Darren Summerville and William Q. Bird.
Aside from Mancuso, the other individually named defendants are Alan Hesketh, Richard Carino, George Eliot Kabacy, Dan W. Joachim, Ranier Gerow, Douglas Michael Stum, Richard Scheiring, Charles Lindauer, Joseph Marcus, William George Gammon, Stephen Jabbour, Albert Noah Abrams and Mayer Finkelstein.
The federal case number is 2:13-cv-04935-SD. ..Source.. by Jon Campisi
March 16, 2013
Family sues to force sex offender to buy their home
This is new, but there is no proof that their home has lost value; that is a myth perpetrated by real estate brokers. See this study which exposes the myth. However, if their home has lost value, then anyone including the RSO should be able to buy it at the reduced value.3-16-2013 Pennsylvania:
Upper Milford couple want neighbor who abused their daughter to buy their house.
The parents of a Lehigh County child molested by a neighbor have taken an unusual step to get away from the man who abused their daughter. They want to force him to buy their property.
The Upper Milford Township couple says Oliver Larry Beck's presence in their neighborhood has made their home impossible to sell. They've filed a lawsuit in Lehigh County Court asking a judge to order Beck, his wife and his mother to buy their property, which they say is worth $235,000.
They also want Beck to pay their moving costs and have requested punitive damages for the child's pain and suffering and for economic damages.
Beck, now 65, pleaded guilty in 2011 to indecent assault of a child under 13 and was sentenced to three to 23 months in prison. He is out of prison but under Megan's Law must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
The family is "under duress to move from their current residence" and away from Beck, according to the lawsuit.
Some attorneys say the suit, if successful, would open the floodgates to the courts. Those interviewed could not point to a lawsuit with a similar request.
"I have never heard of that and the court may say it has no authority to order that," said Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia Law School professor. "If the house, in fact, lost value, and if the owners are entitled to recover for that, that value can be awarded in damages without transferring ownership of the house.
"Selling the house to the offender might be a sensible part of a settlement, but it would be odd as a court-ordered remedy."
Anthony Sabino, an associate law professor at St. John's University, said forcing a person to buy someone else's home could be deemed unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment.
Easton defense attorney Gary Asteak said the request would be a tough sell to a jury.
"This is taking our litigious society to the most absurd extremes," he said. "Certainly, I think a jury in our community would treat [the suit] with skepticism."
But Jennifer Storm, a sexual assault survivor and executive director of the Victim/Witness Assistance Program in Harrisburg, believes it has merit and called it a creative and legitimate case.
"I applaud any effort that a victim can take to ensure their well-being," Storm said. "I think this could be a good case to potentially set precedent."
Diane M. Sodano, the Bucks County attorney who filed the lawsuit, declined to discuss the case, which is still pending. The victim and her family are identified only by their initials in the lawsuit. The Morning Call does not identify the victims of sex crimes without their consent.
Robert J. Magee, the Allentown attorney representing Beck, in addition to Beck's wife and mother, said his clients didn't want him to discuss the case.
But in a court brief filed this month, Magee said the lawsuit's demand for the home purchase is "not appropriate or authorized under a legal or equitable theory." He added that the couple are still able to use and enjoy their property.
He added, "This is just a type of injury that allows for no recourse, an injury without a remedy."
In a court brief, Magee cites a lawsuit filed by Philadelphia property owners who claimed a federal Superfund site nearby made their house hard to sell. That suit was dismissed.
Pennsylvania Superior Court chimed in that allowing financial recovery in that case "would open the proverbial floodgates."
"Any time a property owner engaged in an activity that ostensibly reduced surrounding property values, liability would attach," the decision says. "Hence, a property owner opening an unpopular public housing project or an AIDS clinic would be strictly liable for a decline in the surrounding property values.
"Although hazardous waste contamination is undeniably pernicious, when such contamination only impacts a property owner's ability to sell his or her property, a nuisance action does not exist."
Investigators said that in February 2011, Beck lured the victim, then 7 years old, into his house by saying he wanted to show her a bear's head mounted in his basement. After telling the girl to feel the bear, Beck told her to take off her shirt and pants and then assaulted her, according to court records.
When the victim's father found out, he called police.
A judge ordered Beck not to have unsupervised contact with anyone younger than 18 and to have no contact with the victim and her family.
The lawsuit also seeks punitive damages for the child, alleging that Beck developed a friendly but fraudulent relationship with her and her family.
Though Beck was convicted of only one incident, the lawsuit claims he touched the girl multiple times between 2009 and 2011 and videotaped one of the encounters. The suit says Beck took the girl on four-wheeler rides, shot a BB gun with her and gave her candy and gifts.
The suit accuses Beck of sexual assault, negligence and inflicting emotional distress, among other allegations. It accuses Beck's wife and mother of negligence, claiming they knew or should have known of Beck's attraction to girls and the risk he posed.
Beck's victim suffered emotional distress, shame and embarrassment and will indefinitely need therapy and counseling, the suit says.
The state Supreme Court in 2011 ruled that local laws restricting where sex offenders may live interfere with the state's system of tracking and rehabilitating them. The decision struck down an Allegheny County law that barred sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, parks and day-care centers.
Last year, an Arizona appeals court ruled that home sellers and their real estate agents aren't obligated to tell buyers that a registered sex offender lives next door.
In their lawsuit, the Upper Milford family say they would feel ethically and legally obligated to disclose the proximity of their property to Beck's home.
Henry Lerner, an attorney for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors, said it's a home buyer's responsibility to research a property.
He said the buyer contract and agreement of sale published by his organization points out the state's Megan's Law website and recommends that buyers look at the registry.
"Not to minimize the issue of sex offenders, but there could be a lot of things affecting one's use of a property and it's up to the buyer to do their own research," Lerner said.
He noted Pennsylvania Superior Court recently ruled that property sellers do not have to reveal notorious events such as murders on disclosure statements.
"The gist of the ruling was that the seller disclosure law is meant to apply to defects of your particular property," Lerner said. "So, the fact that someone was shot there, while a bad thing, was not something that made the property defective. I would say that [the sex offender issue] would be a similar sort of thing. It's something that exists, but is not a problem of the property."
There is some scientific evidence that sex offenders lower property values.
Two economics professors at Columbia Business School in 2008 studied the effect, finding that the value of homes within one-tenth of a mile of a sex offender dropped by an average of 4 percent.
Jonah Rockoff, one of the study's authors, said the decrease was about 12 percent for properties next door to sex offenders. He said subsequent studies have shown similar results.
"It's clear that having a sex offender nearby depresses the value of a home," he said. "Whether that entitles the nearby homeowner to some kind of compensation is a completely separate question."
A similar study by Jeren C. Pope, now an assistant economics professor at Brigham Young University, showed housing prices fell by 2.3 percent in some Florida neighborhoods after sex offenders moved in. Pope's research found that housing prices appeared to immediately rebound once a sex offender moved out. ..Source.. by By Patrick Lester
