April, 2006 News and earlier (continued)
Hundreds of California residents are among 9,037 fugitives arrested
Bill Curtis
28 Apr 2006 6:17 am
More than 1,100 of the fugitives nationally were wanted in connection with violent sex crimes, a group that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has made a priority in his 15 months at the Justice Department. The operation "targeted the worst of the worst," Gonzales said at a news conference at the Justice Department.
Among the 256 apprehended in the inland region that stretches from Bakersfield to the Oregon border was a murder suspect from Mexico living in Modesto who will be deported, said Antonio Amador, marshal for that district.
Four of the 256 were homicide suspects, 30 were suspected of sex crimes, 108 were wanted on drug charges and 49 for other crimes.
Sexual Offender Registers as Okaloosa Transient
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a community Sexual Predator Notification in accordance with the “Public Safety Information Act of 1997” in regards to a convicted sexual offender who has registered as a transient within Okaloosa County.
Robert Wayne Harrelson, 42, was recently released from jail and registered with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Friday morning. He is currently residing and working in the Fort Walton Beach area. Harrelson is required to maintain contact with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office Sex Offender/Predator Unit until he has a permanent address to report.
Harrelson is described as a white male, five-feet, eight-inches tall, weighing 145 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He has a scar on the right side of his head and travels by bicycle.
Harrelson is a registered Sexual Predator with a 1985 and 1993 conviction in Bay County for Lewd and Lascivious on a child under the age of 16. The victim’s gender is unknown.
Sex-offender bill taken up today
JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
Both chambers of the Legislature will take up a bill today that would make changes to a year-old law aimed at targeting sex offenders and predators.
Lawmakers want to tweak the Jessica Lunsford Act, passed last year following the rape and murder of the 9-year-old Homosassa Springs girl. Her neighbor, a sex offender who did contract work at her school, was convicted of the crime.
The proposed changes, filed by state Sen. Nancy Argenziano, a Crystal River Republican, and state Rep. Dick Kravitz, a Jacksonville Republican, would allow school districts to share fingerprint records of contractors to avoid multiple checks.
It would also make it a criminal offense if a sex offender or predator does not have a specific marking -- a statute number -- on the front of their drivers' licenses alerting people of their crimes.
Resident gets 58 years in child sex assault case
Amanda Arthur
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The Longmont man convicted in March of kidnapping and raping a family friend’s daughter will serve 58 years in prison.
Stephen Carrillo was convicted of sexually assaulting his 11-year-old victim over a seven-hour period in January 2005. The girl told police Carrillo kidnapped her as she walked to school and took her to his apartment, where he bound her with duct tape before raping her.
In a statement her mother read in court, the young victim said she still has nightmares about what happened to her and is constantly afraid Carrillo will return and kill her.
“I want justice to be done,” the girl wrote. “I want to feel safe again and just lay there in my bed and not wait for him to come snatch me away again.”
Judge Carol Glowinsky praised the girl for her bravery in coming forward with what happened to her, saying the girl is a fighter who “is singlehandedly protecting children from Mr. Carrillo’s risk.”
Victim's family sympathetic to killer
SARAH LEMON
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
No one appeared on behalf of 68-year-old David Evan Rice at the Thursday sentencing of David Michael Jurich. Convicted Wednesday of Rice's 2004 murder, Jurich, 26, was sentenced in Jackson County Circuit Court to life in prison with a minimum term of 25 years before he is eligible for parole.
Many of Rice's relatives suffered physical abuse at his hands, said former stepdaughter 45-year-old Lani Narducci, of Grand Junction, Colo., contacted by phone. Most were relieved to hear he had died, she said.
"I cannot grieve for this man," she said.
Narducci and Rice's granddaughter, 27-year-old Malaina Blickenstaff, of Tri-Cities, Wash., said they feel Jurich's sentence is too harsh, nearly characterizing the crime as a community service.
Location outside Otay Mesa prison
Dana Littlefield
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
State officials said yesterday that a sexually violent predator slated for release from a mental hospital will likely be placed in a trailer outside an Otay Mesa prison, the same site where another sex offender was housed until early this year.
San Diego Superior Court Judge David M. Gill set a hearing date for May 24 at which time he will consider whether to approve the proposed site and discuss comments from the public.
Peekskill man pleads guilty to sex activity with girl, 10
JONATHAN BANDLER
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The owner of a Millwood plumbing business will be spared jail time after admitting that he had sexual contact with a 10-year-old girl on at least two occasions in recent years.
Richard Bell, 68, of Peekskill pleaded guilty yesterday in Westchester County Court to the charge, technically known as second-degree course of sexual conduct with a child. Acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard Molea promised him 10 years' probation, and Bell will have to register as a sex offender.
The lesser charge allowed Bell to avoid a mandatory five years in state prison if he had gone to trial and been convicted of the most serious charges. On questioning by Assistant District Attorney Mary Clark DiRusso he admitted to engaging in sexual contact with the girl on at least two occasions between February 2002 and last May. The reduced charge meant he did not admit having sexual intercourse with the girl as he was originally accused.
Changes for DE's Jessica's Law
Associated Press
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
State House Speaker Terry Spence is making changes to his legislation targeting sex offenders.
He's introducing an amendment that he says addresses some of his colleagues' concerns about his original bill. The revised bill could get a floor vote in the House next week.
State House Speaker Terry Spence says he wants to send a clear message to sex offenders.
The bill is Delaware's version of Jessica's Law, named for a nine-year-old Florida girl who was raped and killed last year by a repeat sex offender.
If approved, sex offenders who prey on children could be eligible for a life sentence after a first offense and would get an automatic life sentence after a second offense. The repeat offender would not be eligible for parole.
Bail for sex offender criticized
JONATHAN BANDLER
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The parents of a teenager fondled by a 76-year-old neighbor were incensed yesterday after learning his jail sentence will be on hold while he appeals his conviction.
"The system is failing this victim," said the girl's mother after Westchester County Judge Gerald Loehr in White Plains set $5,000 bail for John Fabre. "Everyone is entitled to his day in court but this makes what the jury did meaningless."
Fabre was sent to the Westchester County jail April 21 after a Port Chester judge sentenced him to nine months for touching the girl's breasts in March 2004 when his grandson brought her home to do homework. The girl was 14 at the time.
A jury convicted Fabre of endangering the welfare of a child and third-degree sexual abuse in January after a trial the girl's mother complained was repeatedly delayed by defense tactics and Fabre's claims of illness.
State sex offenders shouldn't be anonymous
Rebecca Lambert
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
I can't believe people are even questioning whether we should have sex offenders' addresses online. Have the public and our law makers forgotten the definition of sex offender? They prey on the unsuspecting and most innocent in our communities. Are we really ready to give up the knowledge of a sex offender's presence in our neighborhoods to protect his right to live more safely? Am I the only one seeing the irony in this?
Otsego to fix sex-offender placing
Tom Grace
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
Otsego County officials agreed Thursday to implement procedures to help prevent convicted sex offenders from living near their victims.
The issue of placing offenders and their victims close to each other arose last month when a level 2 sex offender, Tremaine Hutson, 20, was housed at the Oasis Motor Inn in Oneonta, not far from his teenage victim.
When the victim’s mother learned where Hutson was living, she raised the issue first in Oneonta and later with county officials. Thursday, she attended the meeting of the subcommittee of the county’s Human Services Committee at the county office building in Cooperstown.
Rothenberger praised the victim’s mother for raising the issue and told those present,"I think we have to do everything we can to try to keep our children safe."
Denofrio spoke about how complicated the situation is.
"We have to worry not just about the victims, but about the other potential victims out there," he said.
Undercover civilians luring potential child predators online
Ken Maguire
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
This was Stacey DeLuca's plan: Chat online with child predators while pretending to be a young girl. Just a few hours.
Why is Sen. Kennedy Blocking a Bill That Would Protect Kids?
Bill O'Reilly
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The proposed law is called the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. And it would mandate that federal authorities keep a database of convicted child predators and child abusers.
Sex offenders would face restrictions in Paramus
MERRY FIRSCHEIN
28 Apr 2006 12:00 am
The borough is in the process of making life a little tougher for sex offenders by instituting new rules on where they can live.
The residency restrictions, introduced by the Borough Council this week, prohibit sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of any school, public or private park or playground, or library. The facilities don't necessarily have to be in Paramus, but if part of the 1,000-foot radius falls in the borough, sex offenders must stay away, the ordinance states.
More than a dozen New Jersey municipalities have such an ordinance, according to newspaper reports.
Fool Me Once, Shame on You
Breck Porter
28 Apr 2006
This is the true story of a local sex offender who tried every angle, told every lie, violated law after law, in his effort to fool the police and beat the system, only to wind up in jail facing a prison term that he had managed to avoid for years.
Man gets 90 days in jail for child-skirt photo
ELIZABETH A. SHACK
28 Apr 2006
A Port Clinton man who tried to take a photo under the skirt of a 12-year-old girl at the Woodville Mall was given the maximum possible sentence yesterday of 90 days in jail for two misdemeanor voyeurism-related convictions.
Richard R. Cantu, 51, also was fined $750 by Perrysburg Municipal Judge S. Dwight Osterud.
20 year prison sentence for child porn
28 Apr 2006
A former Raymondville animal control officer is sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for possessing child porn.
Former Teacher Awaits Judge's Decision
28 Apr 2006
He plead guilty and was sentenced to 7 years probation for molesting four boys...and now Oscar Zubia's fate is in the hands of a district judge.
Vigilante murders incite review of sex offender registry
Douglas Wright and Victoria Wallack
28 Apr 2006
There will be no immediate changes to the state sex offender registry in response to the Easter Sunday murders of two convicted offenders.
At the hearing, Public Safety Commissioner Michael Cantara testified that he would not recommend change now, but rather suggested the legislative committee engage in a review of what the sex offender registry should contain and how it should be displayed.
As reprehensible as the two murders were on Easter Sunday, the questions you’re grappling with transcend those two murders, Cantara said.
Business expert calls Wal-Mart "irresponsible" in hiring sex offender
Jack Kuenzie
27 Apr 2006 9:02 pm
Bobby Randall's job application was described in court, "Under rate of pay expected, it's blank. Under the date you can start work it's blank. Under are you 18 years of age or older, nothing is checked."
But Wal-Mart hired Randall anyway, putting him to work at the store on Forest Drive in Columbia.
Business management expert William Anthony says that was the first in a series of Wal-Mart mistakes, "Well, the hiring process did not conform to Wal-Mart's policies. It was very sloppy and irresponsible, the way in which they hired him."
Several years later, Wal-Mart's failure to gather more information on Randall would come back to haunt the retailer. Randall followed a 10-year-old girl through the store, fondling her and himself.
In court, the attorney asked Dr. Anthony, "What should have been done with that application?"
Anthony responded, "It should have been rejected. It's quite clear in their policies. And if would have been rejected, we wouldn't be here today. Because he wouldn't have been hired."
The plaintiffs say Wal-Mart could have discovered Randall was a repeat sex offender. He had three convictions for exposing himself, one while he was an employee.
