Tag: Illinois

IL: Illinois judge who reversed sex offender’s conviction is reassigned

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Source: nydailynews.com 1/15/22 The Illinois judge who sparked outrage after reversing a sex offender’s conviction has been reassigned. According to the Herald-Whig newspaper, on Thursday Adams County Judge Robert Adrian was removed from presiding criminal cases and reassigned to civil cases — including small claims, legal matters and probate dockets. Adrian first made headlines earlier this month, after he overturned the conviction of 18-year-old Drew Clinton, who had been found guilty in the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl last year. Read the full article  

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IL: Changes will deny probation for some child pornographers

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Source: wgem.com 12/29/21 QUINCY (WGEM) – There’s a change to a law that has to do with possession of child pornography. Legislators closed a loophole that allowed family members found to be in possession of child pornography to escape jail time. Starting on Jan. 1, possession of child pornography when the child is a household or family member is a non-probational offense. This means the offender will serve jail time if convicted. Previously, this category of offenders could receive a sentence of probation for their pornography conviction. Read the full…

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IL: Landlords want shared risk to rent to risky tenants in Bloomington-Normal

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Source: wglt.org 10/27/21 McLean County social service leaders say they aren’t yet seeing the impact of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic eviction moratorium – but they’ve been preparing. During a McLean County League of Women Voters forum about homelessness Tuesday night, Matt Burgess, chief executive officer of Home Sweet Home Ministries (HSHM), said he’s already been in talks with a property management company with roughly 1,000 apartments about working on master leases that would include a rent guarantee from HSHM. … Typically the programs provide money for security deposits,…

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IL: Felony child sex offenders evade background checks, state law to make state fair carnival vehicles in Illinois work

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Source: illinoisnewstoday.com 9/22/21 Illinois State Police investigation is “open and ongoing” Agricultural Ministry may terminate carnival company contracts as “indignated” After investigating Target 3 Springfield, Illinois — A registered sex offender six months after the Illinois Correctional Bureau released 41-year-old Jason Flynn from state prison on Ferony’s conviction, including sexual abuse of a 12-year-old child. Was working on a carnival. Equipment near toddlers at the Illinois State Fair. Despite background checks protocols and state law designed to keep child sex offenders away from children at fairs, the WCIA survey is…

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IL: Former GOP House speaker agrees to settlement with man whom he allegedly molested as a child: report

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Source: rawstory.com 9/15/21 On Wednesday, CBS 2 Chicago reported that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) has agreed to a “tentative” settlement with the man who alleges he paid him off to cover up child sex abuse. “The man, referred to only as James Doe in filings, brought the breach-of-contract lawsuit in 2016 in a bid to force Hastert to pay the unpaid balance of the hush money, nearly $2 million. Hastert’s lawyers said the 2010 deal was void after Doe spoke about it to others,” said the report. “A…

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IL: Democrat-Sponsored ‘TEXAS Act’ Would Allow $10K Bounties On Sexual Abusers…

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Source: nprillinois.org 9/14/21 Two weeks after Texas effectively banned abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, a Democratic state lawmaker in Illinois is proposing a law based on Texas’ model — but turned on its head. State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago), who in 2019 sponsored law defining abortion as a fundamental right in Illinois, is introducing a bill dubbed the “EXpanding Abortion Services Act,” the acronym of which spells TEXAS. The Texas law is uniquely designed, allowing private citizens the right to bring a civil lawsuit against anyone who performs an…

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IL: ‘Predator hunter’ leader indicted after alleged sting operation to trap supposed sexual predators

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[nbcnews.com – 5/28/21] An Illinois man who created a Facebook group known to track potential sexual predators was charged in connection with a sting operation that went awry in early January, prosecutors said Monday. Kyle Swanson, 30, was indicted on a charge of unlawful restraint, obstruction of justice and assault in connection with his involvement with the KTS Predators Hunter Organization, according to court records. For more than two years, the vigilante group has posed as children on social media, tricked men into meeting up at public spaces in Illinois…

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IL: Bill would make no-contact orders for sexual offenders permanent

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[newschannel20.com – 4/14/21] SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WICS/WRSP) — A new bill making its way through the Senate would protect sexual assault survivors from their attackers for life. Senate Bill 2277, sponsored by State Sen. Steve Stadelman, D-Rockford, aims to protect sexual assault survivors from ever seeing their attacker again. This legislation would make civil no-contact orders permanent if the assailant is criminally convicted of sexual assault. Currently, under law, people must renew no-contact orders every two years. Read the full article  

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WI: Pros and cons: Housing for released prisoners [including registrants] raises debate

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[thetelegraph.com – 3/27/21] APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — Julie Angell was nervous. She was about to get out of prison, but didn’t have anywhere to go. Even with help, the challenges faced by many people getting out of prison can be immense and it isn’t uncommon for some to end up homeless if they’re unable to afford a place of their own or can’t find somewhere willing to rent to them. There is similar transitional housing in communities all over Wisconsin — 377 beds in 44 locations — meant to provide…

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IL: Current policies funnel large number of… [people] …into one building. That needs to change

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[chicago.suntimes.com – 3/25/21] The state’s job is to balance the needs and rights of… [people with a prior conviction] …with those of all others. A single building in Englewood, a neighborhood with plenty of struggles, has been home to not one or two or even three… [people listed on the registry] …— but to literally dozens. That strange and — for most Americans — troubling fact came to light recently when people in the neighborhood became aware of, and objected strongly, to one man in particular who had moved into…

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IL: Illinois House bill would change sex offender residence requirements

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[wandtv.com – 3/18/21] SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WAND) – A bill moving through the Illinois House of Representatives would change how close a registered sex offender could live to a school, playground, or childcare facility. HB3913 would amend the Unified Code of Correction and allow a registered sex offender to reside within 250 feet of any the restricted facilities. State law currently requires they live 500 feet. The bill sponsored by Rep. Camille Lilly and Rep. Kelly Cassidy would also remove a weekly requirement that a registered sex offender must register their address…

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IL: Apartment building where sex offenders have stayed should be shut down, Englewood residents say

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[chicago.suntimes.com – 3/8/21] Englewood residents protested outside an apartment building Monday that they said had become a frequent home to paroled sex offenders. The latest to move-in is Cayce ____, convicted in the 1997 sexual assault and murder of 20-month-old Quortney Kley. ____moved to the 6600 block of South Perry Avenue last week from Crystal Lake after residents in that McHenry County city petitioned for his removal. ____ is on mandatory supervised release — got out of prison in February after serving 24 years of a 48-year sentence, according to…

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IL: Hundreds of Southern Illinoisans are required to register as sex offenders. But are we any safer?

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[thesouthern.com – 11/27/20] SPRINGFIELD — Illinois’ sex offender registry, which now includes more than 32,000 people — most of them men, though some women, as well — has rapidly expanded since its first iteration in 1986. Then, it included four qualifying crimes. Today, there are more than 30 crimes that trigger mandatory registration, including some repeat misdemeanor offenses. In recent years, policy makers and advocates, both for offenders as well as victims, have been raising questions as to whether the registry, and the ever-increasing rules around it, really makes the…

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IL: A timeline of how Illinois registered sex offender database was created

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[pantagraph.com – 11/25/20] When Terry Parke, a state representative from Pittsfield, the chief sponsor of the Habitual Child Sex Offender Registration Act, discusses his 1986 bill, he describes it as “one of the most important laws the Legislature would consider that year.” The law requires habitual child sex offenders to register with police within 30 days of release from prison and remain registered for 10 years. “We are having an epidemic in Illinois … of sex crimes against our children,” Parke said. But state Rep. Larry Hicks, a Democrat from…

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IL: Name Change for Transgender Sex Offender Debated at Seventh Circuit

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[courthousenews.com – 11/6/20] CHICAGO (CN) — A Seventh Circuit panel heard arguments Friday over whether a Wisconsin law barring convicted sex offenders from changing their name amounts to free speech infringement. The underlying lawsuit was brought in Milwaukee federal court in May 2019 by Karen Krebs, a transgender woman from Kenosha, Wisconsin, who cannot change her name due to a 1992 conviction which required her to register as a sex offender. Wisconsin law makes it a Class H felony for anyone who is required to register as a sex offender…

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IL: A Veteran Cook County Judge Has Been Repeatedly Blocked from Hearing Sex Offense Cases. Here’s Why.

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[bettergov.org – 10/22/20] A Chicago teenager pleaded with Cook County Judge James Linn to impose the maximum prison sentence on the man who sexually assaulted her and her two sisters for several years and threatened to kill them if they told anyone. “Help us ensure that there will be one less rapist out on the streets,” the woman, then 19, wrote in a victim impact statement read aloud at the sentencing hearing in May 2011. “At the end of the day, I just want justice to be served the correct…

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IL: Inside the Endless Nightmare of Indefinite Detention Under “Civil Commitment”

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[inthesetimes.com – 8/19/20] In June 2019, after serv­ing more than 29 years in Illi­nois pris­ons, Otis Arring­ton expect­ed to be released to free­dom: He had fin­ished his time, which he describes as dif­fi­cult and trau­mat­ic, and his exit date was pend­ing. But three days before he was slat­ed to get out, Arring­ton says he was informed that he would, instead, be placed under a new form of con­fine­ment — one with no end date, met­ed out after he had already com­plet­ed the pun­ish­ment imposed by the crim­i­nal courts. “I was sup­posed to get out, and…

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IL: Lawsuit dismissed after sex offenders living at Aurora ministry find new homes

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[dailyherald.com –  7/27/20] Sex offenders who sued to stay at the Wayside Cross Ministries halfway house in downtown Aurora after a judge ruled it is too close to a playground have dropped their litigation after all of them found alternative housing. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed Friday, according to Kane County court records and their attorney, Adele Nicholas, who credited the Kane County state’s attorney’s office with giving the 18 men time to move instead of arresting and essentially evicting them. Read the full article  

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