MADISON (WKOW) — A Cottage Grove man Monday admitted to setting fire to the future home of a sex offender, and was convicted of felony arson. 51-year old Russell Speigle will be sentenced next month. The crime carries a maximum sentence of forty years. But a plea agreement between Speigle and the Dane County district attorney’s office involves prosecutors asking for no more than one year in jail for Speigle. Full Article Related WI: Man arrested on suspicion of burning house intended for sex offender
Read MoreCategory: National
NE: State appeals decision barring state from adding boy to state’s sex offender list
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) – Nebraska’s attorney general is appealing a federal judge’s decision to block the state from putting a 13-year-old boy who moved to Nebraska from Minnesota on its public list of sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Florida sex offender registry: double-digit growth
More than a dozen people a day walk into the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and register as sex offenders. The county is home to more than 2,200 of them. A recent study by researchers at the Florida Legislature found that the number of registered sex offenders living in Florida communities has increased 44 percent over the past 10 years. Full Article Related Fla. sex offenders figures announced, pushes surroundings awareness
Read MoreWA: Supreme Court – Records of low-level sex offenders are public
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington’s Supreme Court says information about low-level sex offenders can be released under the state Public Records Act. The 7-1 decision Thursday overturns a King County Superior Court holding that found the records were not subject to disclosure. The ruling came in a case involving Donna Zink, a Franklin County woman who requested a copy of the Washington State Patrol’s sex-offender database. Full Article Opinion
Read MoreFL: Concerning the Registrants at the Tracks
As mentioned in a prior post; the ACLU filed it’s Appellate Brief on behalf of FAC and the 200+ registered citizens living alongside the railroad tracks at the corner of 79th Street and NW 36th Avenue in Miami. Derek Logue of OnceFallen.com, who had traveled to Florida last week and visited the encampment initiated a post to which FAC replied. Since our reply contained a lot of information and could possibly be an action item for anyone (or group of people) who want to help these people, we’ve re-posted the…
Read MoreIL: ACLU, EFF ask state supreme to strike down limits on free speech in cumbersome sex offender laws
CHICAGO – The ACLU of Illinois, joined by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, today asked the state supreme court to strike down the “incredibly broad scope” of limitations contained in the state’s sex offender registry laws. The amicus brief was filed in the case of ____ ____, a young man from downstate Normal who served a 12-month probation for a misdemeanor offense, which he completed. Though years have passed, Mr. ____ still is forced to navigate a series of onerous and cumbersome requirements under the State’s Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA). Full Article
Read MoreAL: Pastor wins round in freedom of religion lawsuit
A Chilton County pastor has won a round in his federal lawsuit challenging a state law that ended his residential ministry for sex offenders. U.S. District Judge Keith Watkins on Wednesday denied the state’s requests to dismiss the claims by Ricky Martin, who sued in 2014. Full Article
Read MoreAZ: Ducey signs bill ending some sex offender registration
PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has signed legislation allowing some offenders convicted of sexual conduct with a minor to ask a judge to end their need to register as a sex offender. Ducey signed House Bill 2539 by Republican Rep. Rusty Bowers on Tuesday. The legislation only applies to people convicted for an offense committed when they were 21 or younger, where the victim was between 15 and 17 years old and the sex was consensual. Full Article
Read MoreCO: New teen sexting crime falls short in Colorado House
DENVER – A proposal to ratchet back criminal penalties for teens exchanging nude images of themselves has failed in the state Legislature. Democrats voted against the bill in a House committee Tuesday, and it failed by a single vote. Opponents worried that making the crime less serious would mean that some teen couples swapping consensual nude photos could be charged with the less serious crime. Full Article Related Why These Proposed Sexting Laws for Teens Are Totally Missing the Point
Read MoreTX: On the cost-benefit analysis of enforcing sex-offender registry conditions vs. investigating violent crime
Dallas PD has shut down its monitoring unit charged with driving around to make home checks for people on the sex-offender registry, reported WFAA’s Tanya Eiserer in somewhat breathless tones. The story quickly devolved into Chief David Brown’s critics taking pot shots at him for being soft on sex offenders, or whatever. Full Article
Read MoreLA: Senate agrees to ban sex offenders from door-to-door sales
Convicted sex offenders in Louisiana would be unable to work in door-to-door sales, if the state House of Representatives agrees to a measure that won unanimous support from the Senate. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Don’t harass sex predator, judge tells Pasco sheriff’s office
DADE CITY — Sixth Judicial Circuit Court Judge Linda Babb signed a protective order this week that prevents the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office “from further harassment” of a registered sex predator living in Pasco County. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Court Rules Public Has Access to Sex Offender Hearings
An appeals court has ruled the public cannot be excluded from a courtroom when a judge is considering whether a sex offender should be committed indefinitely after his prison sentence has expired. Judge Jack Tuter gave NBC 6 permission to bring a camera into the courtroom. But the attorney for Corey Lake, a sexually violent sexual predator whose 13-year prison sentence expired in 2012, objected. Assistant public defender Rob Jakovich argued details of confidential treatment records would be exposed in open court, unless the public was barred. … Because ___ was seeking…
Read MoreFL: Lauren Book, Running Unopposed, Raises $1.3 Million Despite Criticisms
Plantation resident Lauren Book, 31, has raised about $1.3 million for her state senate campaign, though she’s running unopposed. Her charity was also awarded a million dollars by the state legislature this session. Book is the daughter of powerful Florida lobbyist Ron Book, and after suffering horrific abuse by a nanny in her teen years, she founded Lauren’s Kids, which raises awareness about childhood sexual abuse and advocates for legislation affecting sex offenders. Full Article
Read MoreTX: Dallas PD shuts down sex offender unit
DALLAS — ____ ____ maintained a Facebook page presenting himself as a teenage girl. The convicted sex offender was caught with 100,000 child pornography images last year. He was recently sentenced to 13 years in federal prison. ____ ____ was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender until police could get enough evidence to charge him with raping a woman inside a Baylor University Medical Center parking garage. He’s still in jail. What do these two men have in common? They were captured through the efforts of the Sex Offender Apprehension Program,…
Read MoreNH: State senators to kill audit of sex offender treatment program
A State Senate committee voted last week to kill a vital bill calling for an in-depth performance audit of the sex offender treatment program in the men’s prisons. The issue in House Bill 1113 matters to every citizen. The sex offender treatment program has been understaffed for years. It still is. The full Senate votes March 31 on the bill, so readers should act fast. Full Article
Read MorePA: When facts aren’t facts – A look at the effectiveness of sexual offender registries
The passages of sexual offender registries have grabbed headlines as steps toward public safety against unchanging “predators” who are being released back into society. The registry laws themselves have cost billions of dollars and generally are passed with overwhelming support. But do they work? Full Article
Read MoreMI: Prosecutor known for fighting prostitution charged with paying for sex hundreds of times
When it came to hiring prostitutes for sex, police say, Stuart Dunnings III preferred escort websites such as Escort Vault and Backpage.com. Most of the time, police say, Dunnings would meet the women at motels. Occasionally, they’d meet at a pimp’s house. His was a ferocious habit, one that led the 63-year-old to shell out hundreds of dollars three or four times a week for a revolving cast of heroin-addled sex workers. By the time he was arrested Monday outside a Lansing, Mich., coffee shop, Dunnings had racked up hundreds of illegal…
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