Category: National

GA: Georgia sex offenders take fight over ‘no-trick-or-treat’ warning signs to 11th Circuit

R H

Source: courthousenews.com 12/18/2021 A group of registered sex offenders have asked the appeals court to overturn a federal judge’s ruling in favor of a sheriff’s office that posted signs telling trick-or-treaters to keep away from the offenders’ homes on Halloween. ATLANTA (CN) — A class of registered sex offenders asked an 11th Circuit panel Friday to overturn a federal judge’s ruling allowing Georgia sheriff’s deputies to put warning signs on their lawns before Halloween. The Butts County Sheriff’s Office has argued in legal briefs that it was merely trying to…

Read More

NC: Flat Rock Middle employee arrested, terminated on charges of having registered sex offender husband on campus

R H

Source: blueridgenow.com 12/17/21 A Flat Rock Middle School employee has been terminated after her arrest by the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office on charges of having a registered sex offender on campus, according to police. The Sheriff’s Office was notified Dec. 16 that Maria ____ is married to a registered sex offender, Jeffery _____, and that he had been seen in a vehicle on the school campus, according to a HCSO news release. It is illegal for a registered sex offender to be on school property at any time. Jeffery is…

Read More

FL: Ocala man torches neighbor’s home because of rumor victim was a pedophile, police say

R H

Source: clickorlando.com 12/14/21 OCALA, Fla. – Ocala police arrested a man Monday who they believe started a fire that damaged a mobile home in early December. Kenneth Bryant, 42, was arrested at Wagon Wheel Mobile Home Park. According to the arrest report, Bryant told police he couldn’t remember the incident because he was too intoxicated but said he was not fond of the victim because of rumors that the man was a child molester. Police said they responded to an arson call at the same mobile home park in the…

Read More

FL: Members of homeless camp arrested on charges of violating probation after camp was shut down

R H

Source: yahoo.com 12/11/21 Note: This article is a follow up to the original article: ‘Literally nowhere else they can go’: Homeless camp shutdown leaves people with few options (floridatoday.com 12/8/21) A group of homeless people was arrested Friday afternoon for violating probation after their camp, where they were required by their probation officers to stay, was shut down and there was nowhere else for them to go. Of the 13 people who had been living at the camp, at least seven had GPS monitors or ankle bracelets registered to the site —…

Read More

MO: Former police officer, detective sentenced to five years probation in sodomy case

R H

Source: emissourian.com 12/6/21 A rural Washington man who previously worked as a municipal police officer and a county sheriff’s detective has been sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to sodomizing a boy that police say he met online. Ryan Shomaker, 48, who previously lived in the 600 block of Royal Oaks Court, pleaded guilty Nov. 22 to one count of second-degree statutory sodomy. He was originally charged with two counts of sodomy, but prosecutors dropped one of the charges in exchange for the plea. St. Louis County Circuit Court Judge…

Read More

FL: ‘Literally nowhere else they can go’: Homeless camp shutdown leaves people with few options

R H

Source: floridatoday.com 12/9/21 Joshua Werbicki has made a home in the woods at 4820 Highway 192 near Melbourne. His driver’s license lists the campsite as his permanent residence. The GPS monitor he must wear as part of his probation requires him to stay at the camp at night. But Werbicki and approximately 12 others say they were told the property owner now wants the site bulldozed this week. They said they were originally given until 8 a.m. Wednesday to vacate by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office. At least seven of them have GPS…

Read More

Federal Government Finalizes SORNA Regulations (and Emergency ACSOL Zoom meeting recording )

webmaster

UPDATE: Read a summary of the SORNA meeting Listen to the recording of the meeting The federal government today published final SORNA regulations in the Federal Register.  According to this publication, the regulations will become effective on January 7, 2022.   “The only thing that can stop these regulations is a formal objection by Congress during the next 30 days which is unlikely to happen,” stated ACSOL Executive Director Janice Bellucci.  “Therefore we must prepare to challenge the regulations through litigation filed in federal courts.” Despite acknowledging that more than 700…

Read More

IA: Iowa Supreme Court says State has ‘no duty’ to end what sex offenders call ‘silent mandatory minimum’

R H

Source: desmoinesregister.com 12/7/21 Do prisoners have a right to be paroled? And if so, do they have a right to access programming required to be eligible for parole? As a new decision from the Iowa Supreme Court shows, there’s no easy answer to either question. The court’s ruling, issued before Thanksgiving, denied an effort by seven Iowa prisoners to challenge what they described in court filings as a “Catch-22” that forces some inmates to wait far longer than others to complete their sentences. The issue before the court involved Iowa’s…

Read More

FL: Florida Supreme Court makes it risky for a defendant to tell a judge ‘I’m innocent’

R H

Source: floridabulldog.org 12/7/21 The Florida Supreme Court is sending this message to criminal defendants: If you think you were wrongly convicted, keep it to yourself. Ignoring long-standing law, the justices decided that when defendants dare to dispute their guilt instead of owning the crime, state trial judges may pile on extra prison time. The court ruled last Thursday in the case of Alvin Davis, a 43-year-old black man with a lengthy rap sheet that includes convictions for attempted murder, robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. After a jury…

Read More

FL: Sex offender freed from prison moves in near family pool in The Villages!

R H

Source: villages-news.com 12/4/21 A 60-year-old sex offender released last month from a Florida prison has moved in with his mother near a family swimming pool in The Villages. Edward ______ was released Nov. 25 from a state prison. He has registered a permanent address at 1312 La Estrellita Way in the Village of Santiago, not far from the El Santiago swimming pool and recreation center, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Read the full article  

Read More

LA: Lutcher Man Charged with Failure to Report International Travel as a Sex Offender

R H

Source: justice.gov 12/3/21 NEW ORLEANS – U.S. Attorney Duane A. Evans announced that WILLIE ______, age 56, was charged on Friday, December 3, 2021, by grand jury indictment with two counts of failure to report international travel as a sex offender under the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). If convicted, WILLIE ______ faces a maximum term of 10 years in prison, up to a $250,000.00 fine, a term of supervised release of between 5 years and life, and a $100 mandatory special assessment fee. Read the full…

Read More

TN: To end retroactive punishment, a judge has ordered the removal of eight men from the sex offender registry

R H

Source: washingtonnewsday.com 12/4/21 To end retroactive punishment, a judge has ordered the removal of eight men from the sex offender registry. To stop their retroactive sanctions, U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ordered the removal of eight individuals from the sex offender list. In her order on Friday, Trauger said, “Tennessee officials continue to defy the Constitution’s guarantees.” “The same analysis applies… to Tennessee’s own, very comparable scheme and practices, according to federal district courts in this state. Officials in Tennessee have continued to apply the state’s long-held-to-be-illegal policy on others…

Read More

CIA Files Say Staffers Committed Sex Crimes Involving Children. They Weren’t Prosecuted.

R H

Source: buzzfeednews.com 12/1/21 Declassified CIA inspector general reports show a pattern of abuse and a repeated decision by federal prosecutors not to hold agency personnel accountable. Over the past 14 years, the Central Intelligence Agency has secretly amassed credible evidence that at least 10 of its employees and contractors committed sexual crimes involving children. Though most of these cases were referred to US attorneys for prosecution, only one of the individuals was ever charged with a crime. Prosecutors sent the rest of the cases back to the CIA to handle…

Read More

NY: Author Alice Sebold apologizes to man cleared in 1981 rape

R H

Source: local10.com 11/30/21 Author Alice Sebold publicly apologized Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week in the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir “Lucky” and said she was struggling with the role she played “within a system that sent an innocent man to jail.” Anthony Broadwater, 61, was convicted in 1982 of raping Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University. He served 16 years in prison. His conviction was overturned Nov. 22 after prosecutors reexamined the case and determined there were serious flaws…

Read More

FL: Guaranteed income program breaks down barriers for formerly incarcerated [including registrants!]

R H

Source: alligator.org 11/22/21 Community Spring fellows believe a criminal sentence shouldn’t impact lives after people serve their time. The nonprofit organization, which is known for breaking down structural poverty and supporting low-income people through monetary support, is running Just Income GNV. The privately funded pilot program, designed by formerly incarcerated individuals, assists formerly incarcerated people re-enter society with a guaranteed income. Community Spring hires fellows, specifically those who have been impacted by poverty, to identify systemic forces that spur further economic difficulties. The 2020-2021 fellowship class created the Just Income…

Read More

VA: Virginia professor to step down after backlash to research on ‘minor-attracted’ people

R H

Source: nbcnews.com 11/24/21 An academic in Virginia whose research on “minor-attracted people” sparked threats and a petition calling for their removal announced their resignation Wednesday, university officials and the scholar said in a joint statement. Allyn Walker will remain on leave until they step down as an assistant professor of criminal justice and sociology at Old Dominion University in May. “We have concluded that this outcome is the best way to move forward,” university President Brian Hemphill said in the statement. He added that he hoped the move will help…

Read More

NY: Conviction overturned in 1981 rape of ‘Lovely Bones’ author Alice Sebold

R H

Source: kcra.com 11/24/21 SYRACUSE, N.Y. —A rape conviction at the center of a memoir by award-winning author Alice Sebold has been overturned because of what authorities determined were serious flaws with the 1982 prosecution and concerns the wrong man had been sent to jail. Anthony Broadwater, who spent 16 years in prison, was cleared Monday by a judge of raping Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University, an assault she wrote about in her 1999 memoir, “Lucky.” Broadwater shook with emotion, sobbing as his head fell into his…

Read More