Putnam County announced on Friday that they had reorganized resources and created a position known as a “Sex Offender Compliance Specialist.” The Florida Sex Offender Registry said that there are currently 305 sex offenders in Putnam County. The county says the specialist “will work in conjunction with the current offender compliance program as a means of providing critical intelligence for investigators by assessing risk-related changes in offender’s behavior.” “We refuse to allow Putnam County to become a safe haven for sexual offenders and predators,” said Gator Deloach, who was elected…
Read MoreTag: Florida
FL: Sex Predator Who Won Lottery Settles Lawsuit
ORLANDO, Fla. — (WKMG) — A convicted sex predator who won a $3 million Florida Lottery jackpot has settled a lawsuit filed by his alleged victims. The plaintiffs’ suit against ___ ____, 45, was scheduled to go trial this week in Orange County Circuit Court. However, like many other civil cases, the parties were able to reach an agreement days before jury selection was expected to begin. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Column misleads about sex offenders
In Lauren Book’s Dec. 11 column, she wrote about the dangers that sexual predators pose to children and admonishes parents to be suspicious of staff at youth-serving organizations. We all want to protect children, so how could such a column be objectionable? Because it is alarmist, misleading and mostly false. Full Opinion Piece Related Lauren Book: UK abuse cases show need to safeguard children
Read MoreFL: Dying, Wheelchair-Bound Sex Offender Must Leave Hospice Care Because There’s a Preschool Nearby
In Florida, a wheelchair-bound man with end-stage Alzheimer’s must move out of the hospice where he’s dying, because he is a registered sex offender and the hospice is too close to a preschool. Phew! That will certainly make the kids a lot safer. Full Article
Read MoreFL: The challenge of elderly sex offenders
By the time deputies arrested ___ ___ ___ for failing to register as a sexual predator, he had built up a 10-year record of consistent registration in Marion County. That’s 42 check-ins, as his attorneys and his friends pointed out at a sentencing hearing in June. When it came to No. 43, ____, 72, who has since been diagnosed with early stages of dementia, says that he simply forgot. “My only crime, your honor, is that I have become old and forgetful,” he told Circuit Judge Robert Hodges that day. Full…
Read MoreFL: Why are sex offenders allowed online?
PORT ST. LUCIE, FL — More than 70,000 sex offenders live and work in the state of Florida. They are restricted by law as to where they can reside and where they can physically go. This includes being no closer than 1,000 feet to a playground, daycare or school. What many may find surprising is that while sex offenders are restricted in many aspects of their lives, they have essentially free access to roam the Internet. “I don’t think that’s right,” mother Jacqueline Josephs told CBS12. “It’s a shame and parents…
Read More“Hard to See”: A story of sex offenders takes center stage
“America is Hard to See” is a play based on the lives of Pahokee residents – Aupperlee, her family, and the hundreds of registered sex offenders who live in the town. The script is based on verbatim transcriptions of interviews and news reports about the place, including a 2015 story by First Coast News. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Preliminary Injunction granted (Internet Identifiers)
The Judge’s Order was just filed in our Motion seeking to enjoin the enforcement of the Internet Identifier changes and WE WON!!! Source (FAC)
Read MoreFL: I’m an ex-sex offender. Florida should use fact, not emotion, to write laws
No matter how a person may have corrected his or her actions and paid for failures, in the state of Florida, it’s “once a felon, always a felon.” What is such a policy as this supposed to solve? Full Opinion Piece
Read MoreFL: The Dobbs Wire – A win in the 11th Circuit today!
A win in the 11th Circuit today! Miami-Dade is infamous for encampments of homeless registrants, permanent housing very scarce because of residency restrictions. Despite national media attention to bad laws that had people living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway–courts haven’t been much help. Now there’s an interesting development. A lawsuit in federal court challenging those residency restrictions had been dismissed. However, today a federal appeals court *reversed* that dismissal and sent it back to the original court for further proceedings. Congrats to John Doe #1, John Doe #2, John Doe…
Read MoreFL: Sex Offender Fights Removal From Hospice
A Florida city’s sex-offender law faces scrutiny in litigation over whether a wheelchair-bound former doctor, convicted of patient abuse in the 1980s, should be forced out of a hospice due to its proximity to a school. A Palm Beach County court petition filed Aug. 31 claims ____ ____, a hospice patient with end-stage Alzheimer’s disease, has been threatened with arrest if he does not move out of Heartland of Boynton Beach, a nursing home near a local preschool. The City of Boynton Beach purportedly issued a notice to ____ and the…
Read MoreFL: Miami-Dade Sex Offender Homeless Encampment Reaches 250 People
The shame of Miami-Dade has reached a new level. The encampment of homeless sex offenders living alongside the railroad tracks on the street corner in a warehouse district in Miami-Dade county has reached two hundred fifty people. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Facing legal challenge, Pasco County changes strict sex offender law
The Pasco County Commission on Tuesday amended its sex offender ordinance, the 2015 law that severely restricts where certain registered offenders can live or even go in the county. But why the commission changed the law — which is being challenged in court — is in dispute. Patrick Leduc, the attorney who is challenging the county’s ordinance on behalf of three registered sex offenders, said the changes were designed to protect the ordinance from his legal challenge. Full Article
Read MoreFL: FAC Members Sue Florida Over Internet Identifier Law
Moments ago, The Florida Justice Institute, Inc. and the law firm of Weitzner & Jonas, P.A. filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to strike down the State of Florida’s requirement that registered citizen’s “Internet Identifiers” be reported. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Sex Offenders’ Fight for Rehabilitation
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) – For sex offenders living in Leon County, getting reintegrated into society means connecting with the right people. The Insiders team looked at why finding housing and employment is much more difficult than most think. Full Article
Read MorePervert Park: Where Sex Offenders Try to Be Normal
No one is more of an outcast in modern society than sex offenders. Nobody wants to know them. Nobody wants to think about them. Everyone would prefer that sex offenders just go away. And due to the harsh laws around sex offenses, they more or less have gone away. Pervert Park, which airs Monday at 10 p.m. EST on the PBS series POV, found some of them, and it makes for uncomfortable viewing. The subject inherently makes the skin crawl. But it is necessary as well. There are 800,000 registered…
Read MoreFL: Broward sheriff’s deputy arrested for child porn charges kills self
FORT LAUDERDALE — A Broward County Sheriff’s deputy who was arrested on more than two dozen child porn charges died Wednesday night after shooting himself, according to the sheriff’s office. Full Article
Read MoreFL: Lawmakers – Banning sex offenders from social media is easier said than done
FORT MYERS, Fla. – Sexual offenders and predators in Florida are required to register their internet information, including emails and social media accounts, with their probation officers, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and their local sheriff’s office. But doing more, such as banning them from social media, is something lawmakers say is easier said than done. Full Article Related FL: Who is policing sex offenders online? The answer – no one
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