Category: National

MN: Long Weekend Protest Rocks Minnesota’s Shadow Prisons

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Source: texansagainstcivilcommitment.com 8/29/21 MOOSE LAKE MN. Behind barbed wire fences a protest movement is swelling for an end to Minnesota’s Shadow Prisons, “treatment facilities” that detainees say are an unconstitutional death sentence. Nearly 800 people are held indefinitely outside of any criminal proceedings, after finishing prison sentences or without being convicted of a crime on civil allegations of being “mental ill” and “sexually dangerous”. Since Friday, and culminating in a protest led by detainees in walkers and wheelchairs this Monday, over a hundred detainees across racial lines have staged four…

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PA: Life sentence for Edwardsville man convicted of child pornography

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Source: timesleader.com 8/27/21 WILKES-BARRE — In what attorneys believe to be the first in Pennsylvania, an Edwardsville man convicted by a Luzerne County jury of possessing child pornography was sentenced Friday to spend the rest of his life in state prison. Joseph J. Davis’ apology had no effect on Judge Tina Polachek Gartley, who expressed compassion for the jurors when they viewed video of two children being raped during the trial. Although no sound was played to the jury, Polachek Gartley said the images from the video will be forever…

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FL: FBI Agent, Army Reserves Col. charged with sex crimes against children in Florida

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Source: cbs42.com 8/27/21 FRANKLIN COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — An FBI agent who investigated sex crimes against children has been arrested and charged with multiple sex crimes against children across several states, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies said Supervisory Special Agent David ____ was tasked with investigating crimes against children, including child pornography. But in February of this year, he was accused of exposing himself to a 14-year-old girl in a “lewd and lascivious manner,” while on vacation in St. George Island. The investigation began in Franklin County…

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IN: Federal Appeals Court OKs Indiana Sex Offender Registry Law

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Source: wfyi.org 8/24/21 A federal appeals court said Indiana’s sex offender registry law does not violate the U.S. Constitution, overturning previous rulings. Indiana’s sex offender registry law does not require offenders to register if they were convicted before it was created in the 1990s. But it does require offenders who move to Indiana to register if they were registered in another state, even if their conviction came before Indiana’s law was created. A few offenders who came from other states sued, arguing they were treated differently than offenders who’d always…

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CT: Committee Considers Sex Offender Registry Changes

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Source: ctnewsjunkie.com 8/24/21 A subcommittee of the state Sentencing Commission is working to create a process to allow certain individuals to be removed from the public sex offender registry. After at least two attempts to reshape the law regarding people who have committed sex offenses, the General Assembly’s Incarceration and Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction Subcommittee will hear a presentation Thursday on two narrow proposals to create a path for people to get off the registry. The proposals are in their infancy and likely will be altered several times before…

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NY: Nicki Minaj’s husband Kenneth Petty sues to have his name removed from New York’s Sex Offender Registry

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Source: the-sun.com 8/19/21 NICKI MINAJ’S husband Kenneth Petty is suing to nix his name off New York’s Sex Offender Registry and reportedly arguing that some imposter signed the documents while he was imprisoned. Petty filed papers against the state’s Criminal Justice Services division to clear his name from the registry because he claims he wasn’t able to plea his case back in October 2004 while he was serving out a prison sentence. The 43-year-old is hoping that he can delete his name off the humiliating and costly registry because he…

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WAR Family Foundation Declares it is Time to Pivot as a Matter of Fundamental Fairness

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Source: womenagainstregistry.org 8/18/21 Pivot from annihilation to reasonable accountability and justice for all ARNOLD, MO, UNITED STATES, August 18, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ — Families are living at the little ‘red dots’ seen on the map. Each dot represents one of the 917,000 men, women or children adjudicated for any one of a vast number of offenses. Those dots also represent almost three million wives, mothers, sisters, girlfriends, brothers, fathers, grandparents and so on. Our challenge to all who have ever made a mistake they regret deeply is to join us in…

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NH: Federal Bureau Of Prisons’ Misclassification Of Inmate Leads To Compassionate Release

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Source: forbes.com 8/17/21 Joshua Fields (District of New Hampshire, Case No. 14-cr-074-LM) had a troubled life. His substance abuse which started at age 9 was nothing more than a path to mental health issues and brushes with the criminal justice system. After pleading guilty to charges of being a felon in possession of a weapon, and mounting up a few prior criminal offenses, Fields pled guilty and was sentenced to 180 months in prison (later reduced to 120 months under a revised law). When he was sentenced in 2014, it…

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IN: Divided 7th Circuit reverses order to remove sex offender names for ‘right to travel’ violation but remands equal-protection claim

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Source: theindianalawyer.com 8/17/21 A split en banc 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a decision from an original three-judge panel that ordered the removal of six names from the Indiana sex offender registry, finding that the state’s sex offender registration law doesn’t discriminate based on residency. However, the case was remanded for further consideration of an equal-protection claim. Judge Amy St. Eve — a member of the original panel who dissented from the January ruling — wrote for the en banc majority Monday in Brian Hope, et al. v.…

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FL: Police Arrest Teen Accused of Helping GOP Strategist’s Underage Sex Trafficking

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Source: thedailybeast.com 8/14/21 Shortly after arresting GOP strategist Anton Lazzaro for underage sex trafficking, police say they’ve caught up with his 19-year-old associate, who now faces the same charges. Jose Pagliery Political Investigations Reporter Law enforcement in Florida has arrested Gisela Castro Medina, a 19-year-old accused of helping a wealthy, young Republican strategist in Minnesota prey on girls and recruit them for paid sex. She faces the same criminal charges as her alleged pal, GOP operative Anton Lazzaro: sex trafficking of a minor, attempt to commit sex trafficking, and obstruction…

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CO: Colorado Ped Patrol chases internet child predators along the Front Range as an audience watches online

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Source: denverpost.com 8/11/21 Local police discourage the vigilante stings as they worry about public safety Andy Cross, The Denver Post By Noelle Phillips | [email protected] | The Denver Post PUBLISHED: August 11, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 11, 2021 at 9:09 a.m. Tommy Fellows hands shook as he looked at the text message from a man who said he wanted to meet a teenage girl for sex. “What are u going to wear for daddy when I pick u up?” the message said. Fellows handed the phone back…

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TX: Former Staffers Condemn Cruel Treatment of Inmates at a Texan Prison for Sex Offenders

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Source: reason.com 8/12/21 The men must keep masturbation diaries, wear ankle monitors, and even use penile circumference gauges. Lenore Skenazy For many men serving time for committing sex offenses in Texas, their prison term never really ends—even if they complete their sentence. That’s because they’re required to enter a live-in mental health facility before returning to society. That facility—in Littlefield, Texas—is actually a former maximum security prison in the middle of a dirt field. “It comes as a surprise,” says Mary Sue Molnar, founder of Texas Voices for Reason and…

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New Bureau of Justice Statistics Study: 9:10 sexual assault victimizations were committed by someone the victim knew

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Sources: Floridaactioncommittee.org 8/10/21 bjs.ojp.gov A new study put out by the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, the United States’ primary source for criminal justice statistics, supports that notion that more than 9 out of 10 sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. The study aggregates data from law enforcement in 20 states, as reported to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in 2019. Contrary to “stranger danger”, the myth that is the basis for most sex offender registration schemes, the study finds that the overwhelming majority of…

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TX: Family of Texas teacher suing police after sting operation

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Source: floridaactioncommittee.org 8/10/21 The family of a Texas teacher are suing a local police department, claiming that a detective drove him to suicide by unjustly arresting him as part of a sting operation. A 39-year-old junior high school teacher from Conroe, Texas, poisoned himself to death with carbon monoxide just days after being released from the Montgomery County jail in August 2019. At the time of his death, Peterson was facing a charge of online solicitation of a minor, which is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in…

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UT: Request from registered sex offender to change taxi driver ordinance raises bigger questions

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Source: stgeorgeutah.com 8/8/21 A local resident’s request to the Cedar City Council for an exemption to one of its ordinances has raised the question of when – or if – a convicted sex offender who has since served their time and been crime-free should be allowed to have the same freedoms to pursue a living as other citizens. The issue first came up in May when Enoch resident Jamie Sherman spoke to the City Council during the public comment portion of the agenda. Sherman told the council that he and…

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NJ: N.J. Supreme Court sides with sex offender seeking removal from Megan’s Law registry

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Source: nj.com 8/9/21 An amendment to Megan’s Law that tightens the rules on who can seek to be removed from a sex offender registry can’t be applied retroactively to crimes committed before the amendment was passed, New Jersey’s Supreme Court ruled Monday. The case involved a man, identified by the initials J.D.-F., who was working as a manager at a McDonald’s in Hillsborough in 2001 when he was accused of improperly touching two teenage boys who worked there. He was convicted in December 2002 of criminal sexual contact and child…

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VA: Top Republican Donor Killed in Prison After Serving Nearly Two Decades for Sexually Assaulting His Own Children

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Source: msn.com 8/8/21 A once-lauded Republican donor and former businessman was killed in prison late Tuesday by another inmate, the Associated Press and a collection of news organizations reported this week. According to the Virginia Department of Corrections, Mark A. Grethen, 63, who was initially not identified by name, died “following an apparent attack by another inmate inside the victim’s cell.” The attack occurred at the Lawrenceville Correctional Center, a for-profit prison operated by The GEO Group, Inc., a news release indicated. “The victim was serving a 26-year sentence for…

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FL: Missing sex offender with dementia found after forgetting address while checking in for registry

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Source: fox35orlando.com 8/5/21 A sex offender who suffers from dementia was missing after forgetting his address while checking in with the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. By Thursday morning, officials said he was found and is OK. Deputies say Dale ____, who does not have a permanent address, went to the sheriff’s office Tuesday to conduct his mandatory check-in for the sex offender registry, however, when he got there, he couldn’t remember the address where he has been staying. Deputies say they let him leave so he could find and write…

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