Dear Registrants, Family Members and Supporters – Please join me and ACSOL President Chance Oberstein, a criminal defense attorney, for our “monthly” meeting to be held telephonically. The conference call will be on Saturday, Sept 21 at 10 am Pacific Time (1:00 Eastern) and will last from 2 to 3 hours. Topics of conversation will include information about the domestic and overseas travel, the Tiered Registry, residency restrictions and other current topics as well as pending legal action throughout the nation. Please Show up, Stand up, and Speak up! Dial-in…
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Kat’s Blog: A Pariah in Hollywood
There was an interesting occurrence in Hollywood this week. Actor Scarlett Johansson, stood up for actor/director Woody Allen, who has been accused of sexual abuse and said simply “I Believe Him.” Woody Allen has become somewhat of a pariah in Hollywood ever since his now grown adopted daughter Dylan Farrow accused him of sexually abusing her when she was a child. Allen has consistently maintained his innocence and even after an investigation, has never been criminally charged with any sexual abuse. And yet, many actors including Colin Firth, Freida Pinto,…
Read MoreYou can be part of an anonymous survey on how registration and notification policies impact your life
[University of Nevada, Reno] Have you ever been in a relationship with a person who had to register on a sex offender registry? We are interested in hearing about your experiences. The first 300 people will be entered into a raffle for (4) $100 & (12) $50 Amazon gift cards. Read more about the survey and choose whether to participate [Below is some of the description on their website] Purpose: You are being asked to participate in a research study which asks about your experiences being in a current or…
Read MoreTen myths about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church
[mercatornet.com – 9/12/19] Credible accusations have fallen to an average of one new case per year in the US Sexual abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests has been headline news for years. But even with so much press attention, there are many commonly accepted myths about this issue. Remarkably, evidence-based research doesn’t always receive attention, while sensationalized stories that create a particular—but sometimes false—narrative do. This ultimately misinforms and harms the public—not to mention efforts to keep kids safe in and outside of the Church. On the year anniversary of…
Read MoreSouth Africa: SA demands sex offenders list be made public
[unitedsouthafrican.com – 2/20/19] For many years South Africans have been calling for a list of convicted paedophiles to be made available like that of the United States however the Department of Justice maintain that revealing details of offenders will go against their right to privacy. The Constitution limits the number of people who are allowed access to the information, yet the public are demanding better protection of their children. In the USA the public can freely search a list of registered paedophiles online to establish where they reside. South Africa…
Read MoreFollow ACSOL on our Twitter handle all4consolaws
ACSOL is now Tweeting regularly on Twitter! To stay up with the latest registrant-related national news stories and ACSOL news and events, please follow our Twitter handle: all4consolaws Or you can go directly to our Twitter page twitter.com/all4consolaws
Read MoreUT: Utah man exonerated years after sexual assault conviction
[kutv.com – 9/10/19] A Utah man is free today, exonerated, after spending years behind bars for a sexual assault he did not commit, according to a judge. Christopher Wickham, 50, was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault in Salt Lake City in 1997, each a first degree felony. He was imprisoned and placed on the sex offender registry. Utah Third District Court Judge Royal I. Hansen signed an order today exonerating Wickham, according to the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center. It said a post-conviction investigation showed “numerous pieces of…
Read MoreCA: City of Commerce Repeals Local Residency Restrictions
[ACSOL] The City of Commerce, located in Los Angeles County, has repealed its local residency restrictions. The repeal took place during a City Council meeting held on September 3. The City Council’s actions took place after its residency restrictions were challenged in Los Angeles Superior Court in a lawsuit filed April 22. This lawsuit is 1 of 37 lawsuits filed thus far challenging residency restrictions adopted by cities and counties in California. Prior to filing of this lawsuit, ACSOL warned the City of Commerce in a letter that the city’s…
Read MoreCA: Democrats incur LGBTQ wrath over sex offender registry bill SB 145
[losangelesblade.com – 9/6/19] During a week of flurry before Labor Day, the California Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees determined which final legislation to pass to the floor for votes and which to suspend for this session. At the end of the day on Friday, Aug. 30, one bill superseded the usual drama to create a pall over California Democratic unity as LGBTQ legislators and advocates expressed outrage that purported supporters used anti-LGBTQ messaging to woo electoral votes in 2020. … However, in a move that infuriated LGBTQ advocates and law…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: “THAT” Can Happen To You
We’ve all sometimes wondered, how did THAT happen? How did I or my family member or my friend become tangled up in this whole “sex offender”, registry nightmare? The short answer is simple, S—t Happens. The longer answer is more complex. But the word that I often hear people use when talking about “sex offenders” sex offenses and the registry is “THAT”. A well-meaning friend whose husband is an attorney mentioned that her husband would never handle cases like” THAT”, meaning “sex offense cases”. When discussing a loved one’s conviction…
Read More3 ways to help sex offenders safely reintegrate back into the community
[phys.org – 9/3/19] Few categories of offender invoke as strong a response as sex offenders. There is a public desire to “do something” about sex offenders, which is taken seriously by politicians of all persuasions. One way governments have responded is by increasing the length of time sex offenders spend behind bars. For example, most Australian states and territories now allow for “dangerous sex offenders”—such as Edward Latimer, who committed numerous offenses against adult victims—to be kept in custody after their sentences have ended. But it’s not feasible to keep…
Read MoreCA: Police: Men Mistook Homeless Man for Sex Offender, Beat Him to Death
[fox40.com – 9/2/19] MODESTO — Police in Modesto say two men beat a homeless man to death with their bare hands after mistaking him for a sex offender. Those who knew him say 63-year-old Jace Decker was often found sitting on a bench in Garrison Park. “He minded his own business for the most part. He just was going through his own life struggles and different adversities,” friend Donnie Bibbs said. Acquaintances say Decker was a husband with a broken heart. “Pretty decent life and everything and, now, I think…
Read MoreIL: Suit settled in teen suicide that led to Illinois law change
[abcnews.go.com – 8/31/19] The case of a suburban Chicago teenager who killed himself after being confronted at his high school about whether he made a video of himself having sex with a classmate raised uncomfortable questions about how aggressively school officials should question kids suspected of wrongdoing and whether they should wait until a parent arrives. A wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of 16-year-old Corey Walgren that focused on those questions has been resolved, with the city of Naperville expected to approve a settlement on Tuesday in which…
Read MoreKat’s Blog: New Illinois Law Hopes to Prevent Suicides
Two years ago, Corey Walgren, a 16 yr. old high school student in Naperville, Illinois, jumped off the roof of a municipal parking garage after being questioned by police on his school campus. Corey had been interrogated by a police officer about an alleged sex tape, accused of possessing child pornography, a felony which can lead to placement on the state’s sex offender registry. Records later showed that there were in fact no illegal images on Corey’s phone. Corey had been interviewed, alone, by police at his school. His parents…
Read MoreIndonesian Doctors Refuse to Castrate Child-Sex Convict
[benarnews.org – 8/27/19] The association representing medical doctors in Indonesia said Tuesday it would refuse to take part in chemically castrating the first convict sentenced to such punishment under the country’s toughened up child-protection laws against pedophiles. In May, a court in East Java province’s Mojokerta regency found Muh Aris bin Syukur guilty of sexually abusing nine children, including girls as young as 7, between 2015 and 2018, and sentenced him to 12 years in prison. The judges, in a landmark ruling, ordered that he be chemically castrated to prevent…
Read MoreOp-Ed: Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide was part of a much bigger crisis in U.S. jails and prisons
[latimes.com – 8/19/19] The New York City medical examiner’s ruling that sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in jail has prompted a lot of hand-wringing about conditions in the facility where he was held. But if the nation had been paying attention, no one would have been particularly surprised by what happened. The United States is in the midst of a prison suicide epidemic. In 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicides accounted for about 1.6% of overall U.S. deaths. That same year, the latest for…
Read MoreDisneyland and Fingerprints
[austinstartups.com – 8/27/19] It may surprise many people but the Walt Disney Corporation is an enthusiastic and early adopter of biometric technology. All the way back in 1996, Disney added a magnetic stripe to their park pass. Instead of the bar-coded laminate photo IDs traditionally used, the new pass had no photo and minimal printed information. The magnetic stripe stored pass information plus it added one new piece of information: a biometric “finger scan” (fingerprint). Disney didn’t provide clear information on what was happening when a guest made the “peace…
Read MoreFL: A look inside Florida Civil Commitment Center life: Pesci v. Budz
[law.justia.com – 8/21/19] James Pesci is a detainee at the Florida Civil Commitment Center (FCCC), a for-profit facility that houses sex offenders involuntarily committed under Florida’s Involuntary Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators Act. Pesci is not a prisoner; like the other roughly 600 residents of FCCC, he has already served out his prison sentence. Instead, he is involuntarily committed because the State has determined that he is a “sexually violent predator” likely to engage in future “acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility for long-term…
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