ST. ALBANS, Vt. – A Vermont state senator was behind bars Thursday night. WCAX has learned that ____ ____ is facing a slew of charges including sexual assault and human trafficking. Sen. ____ ____ , R-Franklin County, was at work inside the Statehouse Thursday afternoon. By Thursday night, he was being held at the Northwest Regional Correctional Center in St Albans. The Republican from Highgate was arrested and charged with sexual assault, prohibited acts and human trafficking. Full Article
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NC: Sex offenders can visit public libraries
A trip to the library landed ____ ____ in jail. In 2011, authorities caught ____ with explicit photographs of 15-year-old girls on his computer. He served 15 months in state prison and, after his release last year, became homeless. Last December the 46-year-old visited the Chapel Hill Public Library to job hunt on one of its free computers, he says. His probation officer had suggested that visiting a library was permissible, provided that a children’s event wasn’t being held there. Full Article
Read MoreDE: ACLU challenges GPS monitoring of sex offenders (Updated)
The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the constitutionality of a Delaware law that requires GPS monitoring of certain convicted sex offenders on probation. The complaint filed Monday targets a 2007 law that requires GPS monitoring of Tier 3, or high-risk, sex offenders who have been released from custody and are on probation. Full Article Update : ACLU of Delaware sues over sex offender GPS law (with copy of law suit)
Read MoreMI: Eliminating statute of limitations on child molestation could be unconstitutional
LANSING — A panel of Michigan lawmakers questioned the constitutionality of a bill to allow criminal cases against people accused of molesting children decades ago, despite emotional testimony from alleged victims of a Norton Shores man. House Bill 4231 would retroactively remove all statute of limitations on first-degree criminal sexual conduct of a minor. In 2001, the Michigan Legislature eliminated the statute of limitations on first-degree criminal sexual conduct, which prior to that was six years. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Couple found guilty of having sex on Florida beach
A jury Monday found a couple guilty of having sex on Bradenton Beach after only 15 minutes of deliberation. The convictions carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. ____ and ___ were charged with two counts each of lewd and lascivious behavior for having sex on a public beach on July 20, 2014.Video played in the courtroom during the 1- 1/2-day-long trial showed Alvarez moving on top of Caballero in a sexual manner in broad daylight. Witnesses testified that a 3-year-old girl saw them. Both ____ and ____ will…
Read MoreTX: North Dallas Mom Invites Sex Offenders To Tea
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) – Sex offenders may be the last people you’d invite into your home. However, a North Dallas woman hosted a sex offender tea for three men on the sex offender registry. “We have to talk about this in polite society, and what’s more polite than tea?” asks Judy Safern. She also invited friends and neighbors over for the gathering and had plenty of them RSVP with an adamant NO! Full Article
Read MoreIA: Mother sentenced to prison for leaving kids with sex offender
SIOUX CITY | A Pierson, Iowa, woman has been sentenced to two years in prison for living with a known sex offender and leaving her 6-year-old twin sons with him. ____ ____, 36, pleaded guilty in Woodbury County District Court to two counts of misdemeanor child endangerment. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Welcome to Pariahville
When you are a registered sex offender in America, you lose the right to choose where you want to live. By law. Your backstory doesnt matter. Nor does the nature of your crime or your excuse. You are exiled from society, and only a few places will welcome you. Like this place in South Florida. The City of Refuge. Jay Kirk reports on life in an American community—yes, that’s definitely the right word—like no other. Full Article
Read MoreOH: Pedophiles should not be allowed to mix with minors on college campus (Column)
Every parent’s nightmare is a reality in the classrooms of Cuyahoga Community College. Literally, as I type this article, blossoming teenage girls and budding teenage boys are schoolmates with adult registered sex offenders who have failed to report Tri-C as their school. Many have stipulations that prohibit unsupervised contact with minors. Full Column Response: Should former sex offenders be allowed on college campuses?
Read MoreTX: Texas Voices standing against sex offender residency restrictions
Texas Voices, a group made up of families of people on Texas’ sex offender registry and others who support reform of Texas sex offender statutes, has been quite active this session, and it’s a good thing. As Grits told their indefatigable leader Mary Sue Molnar when the organization began, every other criminal justice reform group and activist in the state, including me, will inevitably sell them out at the Legislature. When someone says of a proposal, “well, we can do that but we have to exclude sex offenders,” reform advocates…
Read MoreNV: Volunteer work helps sex offender deal with past, build a future
Clients arrive early at the Las Vegas Senior Food Pantry down on Ninth Street, where Teri De La Torre and her small team of volunteers distribute bread, produce, meat and dry goods to the neighborhood’s low-income elderly. The food bank’s headquarters at the corner of Ninth and Bonneville is as neat and manicured as any of the law offices in the area, but there aren’t many billable hours to be found here. The tiny nonprofit has been known for many years more commonly as Jude 22 after the Bible verse…
Read MoreTX: Closing Sex Offender Loophole
SAN ANTONIO – A state lawmaker says he’s making good on his promise to close a loophole in Texas law that could put children of sex offenders in danger. You would think that a convicted sex offenders’ parental rights would be revoked, but that’s not always the case. And it took a brave woman coming forward to the Trouble Shooters to get lawmakers at the State Capitol to take action. Full Article
Read MoreNM: Sex offender registration can be confusing issue
Deputy Pat Montes with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office has the job of keeping track of Lincoln County’s sex offenders. “We are mandated to track and register sex offenders,” said Lincoln county Sheriff Robert Shepperd. “The rules and regulations change all the time.” Full Article
Read MoreFL: Council toughens sexual predator ordinance
The Marco Island City Council passed a tough new ordinance Monday that council members say has made Marco Island a less likely home for a registered sex offender or sexual predator. Full Article Related: Pasco toughens regulations on where sex offenders may live Sex offender surprises Pasco County commissioners with emotional plea
Read MoreNE: Should Minnesota juvenile land on Nebraska Sex Offender Registry?
The Nebraska Supreme Court won’t be asked to weigh in on whether the way a state law is written should result in a 12-year-old boy ending up on the state’s Sex Offender Registry. The question specifically is whether, by the letter of the law, minors listed on another state’s sex offender registry should be put on Nebraska’s list when they move to Nebraska, even if their cases went through juvenile court. In Nebraska, lawmakers opted to exclude juveniles unless they were prosecuted criminally in adult court. But when the Minnesota…
Read MoreFL: FSCJ changes policy to restrict sex offenders, bar sex predators from campuses
Florida State College at Jacksonville has implemented a policy that mandates sex offenders go through an additional application process while baring sexual predators from enrolling. Full Article
Read MoreSex offenders registry may put man back in prison for offence committed as child
Josh Gravens is trying to figure out how he’s going to tell his five children that he might be going to prison for a very long time. Gravens, 28, is a one-time convicted juvenile sex offender facing a possible 25 years to life sentence for a felony related to a crime he committed in his childhood, and for which he has been to prison already. The current charge is not a repeat sex offence; he just failed to correctly update his personal information with his local police department in Texas.…
Read MoreMT: Senate panel advances sex offender residency bill
HELENA, Mont. A plan to keep high-risk sex offenders from living near children advanced out of a Montana Senate panel Tuesday. The bill restricts adults who victimized young people from living within 300 feet of an established daycare center, playground, park, athletic facility or any place where children live. Sponsor Rep. Jeff Essmann said his constituents have repeatedly told him they don’t want known predators living near elementary schools. One woman asked “‘Can you do something about the sex offender that lives right up there?’ and pointed to an apartment…
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