BLOOMINGTON — A requirement that Illinois sex offenders report all Internet sites they use to police is unconstitutional because it violates the offenders’ free speech rights, according to a ruling by a McLean County judge. Judge Robert Freitag agreed with arguments from the defense lawyer for ____ ____, 22, of Normal, that state law is overly broad in its mandate that all email addresses and sites a sex offender uses or plans to use, including Facebook, must be registered with police. Full Article
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PA: 3 men jailed for separate sex assaults of 12-year-old girl from OKCupid dating website
A trio of Lancaster County men recently stood before a local judge and admitted to sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl they met in an online chatroom. … Each man told Reinaker they met the girl through OKCupid, an online dating website. Each claimed they believed the girl was over 18. She was, in fact, 12 at the start of the contact, police reported. … Cory Miller, ____’ lawyer, said the victim continued to use the website even after the men were charged. Full Article
Read MoreIL: Sex offender rule unconstitutional
BLOOMINGTON — A requirement that Illinois sex offenders report all Internet sites they use to police is unconstitutional because it violates the offenders’ free speech rights, according to a ruling by a McLean County judge. Judge Robert Freitag agreed with arguments from the defense lawyer for _____ ____, 22, of Normal, that state law is overly broad in its mandate that all email addresses and sites a sex offender uses or plans to use, including Facebook, must be registered with police. Full Article Related Internet Identifier Bill to be Heard…
Read MoreInternet Identifier Bill to be Heard on July 14
The Senate Public Safety Committee will hear Senate Bill 448 (SB 448) on July 14. The bill, if passed, would require all registered citizens to disclose their “internet identifiers” to law enforcement within five working days. “The bill’s requirement would violate the 1st Amendment rights of registered citizens,” stated CA RSOL president Janice Bellucci, “because the identify of registered citizens would be revealed every time they expressed their opinions on websites such as that operated by CA RSOL.” The author of the bill is Senator Hueso, a Democrat, who represents…
Read MoreKS: Ruling prohibits blanket ban on Internet use for parolees
WICHITA, Kan.- A blanket ban on Internet use unlawfully deprives parolees convicted of sex crimes of more liberty than necessary because the Internet has become a necessary part of modern life, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said the wording in a standard condition of supervised release used by the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services Office for the District of Kansas conflicts with a 2001 ruling from the court because it suggests probation officers can completely ban a means of communication. The court noted…
Read MoreWhy online harassment is still ruining lives — and how we can stop it
In 2010, ____ ____ threatened his estranged wife by writing rants on his Facebook page such as, “There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.” For making these threats, a federal district court sentenced him to more than three years in prison. Full Article
Read MoreAL: Charges Dismissed Against Former Child Sex Crimes Prosecutor For Lack Of Actual Minor In FBI Sting
(2012) There is an interesting ruling out of Mobile, Alabama where former child sex crimes prosecutor, ____ ____, was charged with solicitation of a minor over the computer. Special Judge Gaines McCorquodale dismissed the charge on a key missing element under the statute: an actual victim. Since ____ was speaking with an undercover officer posing as a 15-year-old girl, McCorquodale ruled that there was no victim as required under the language of the statute for child enticement. Essentially, no child, no enticement, no charge. Full Article
Read MoreOne Survivor’s Crusade Reveals a Plague of Errors in Nation’s Sex Offender Registries
Estimates of the number of entries with crucial mistakes run into the tens of thousands. One man—and pretty much only one man—is trying to fix them. Full Article
Read MoreND: Man Sentenced to Prison For Sexual Conversations with Minors
… Judge Gary Lee ordered ____ ____ to spend six years in prison, followed by five years of probation, and a lifetime requirement to register of a sex offender. Judge Gary Lee told ____ that the prison time was a minor worry in his life. The judge said the lifetime sex offender label was much more damaging, adding, quote, “Your life is over.” Full Article
Read MoreNorthern Ireland: Sex offender awarded £20,000 in damages against Facebook
A convicted child abuser who featured on a Facebook page set up to monitor paedohphiles in Northern Ireland is to be awarded £20,000 in damages, a High Court judge ruled today. In a landmark verdict, Mr Justice Stephens held that both the social media giant and page operator Joe McCloskey were liable for misusing private information. He also ordered that the ‘Keeping Our Kids Safe From Predators 2’ profile at the centre of the lawsuit is to be terminated. Full Article Related: Facebook case: ‘I’d rather go to jail than…
Read MoreHow I Became a Monster
Hello. I’m a monster. Not just any kind of monster. Vampires and werewolves get to star in movies. They’re monsters, but they can also be heroes. I’m the worst kind of monster. I’m a sex offender. And the worst kind of sex offender. I’m a pedophile. Don’t worry. I’m locked up. I’ve been in a federal penitentiary for almost two years and I’ll be here for at least another seven. No time off for good behavior. Not for monsters like me. When I get out, I’ll be on lifetime probation.…
Read MoreHouse bill would require DOD to publish names of military sex offenders
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A bipartisan bill introduced in the house Thursday would require the Department of Defense to create its own sex offender registry along with a Website to make the information available to the public. Full Article
Read MoreDigital Darkness and Silence for Sex Offenders in the Information Age
“Is my Furby a computer?” With five months in jail and eight months of parole behind him, and four years of probation to go, Trevor finds himself contemplating the artificial intelligence of a Furby, and its threat to his future. As a registered sex offender, Trevor must abide by a bewildering array of rules, regulations and restrictions. He was introduced to the maze upon parole: He wasn’t supposed to use a computer or the internet, but his parole officer didn’t initially inform him of these constraints. Ironically, he found out…
Read MoreAR: Sex Offender Registry – Address Debate
(KARK) — CONWAY, AR — An Arkansas advocacy group is fighting to get law enforcement agencies to remove the full addresses of sex offenders on websites. The group wants the numbers blocked, but not everyone is budging. Carla Swanson — with Arkansas Time after Time — sent out 900 letters to registered sex offenders with listed addresses on sheriffs’ websites. She says a couple hundred came back to her because the offender no longer lived there. Swanson says that proves the system isn’t very effective, but that’s not her only…
Read MoreNE: Boy’s family fighting state putting him on sex offender registry
Juveniles aren’t listed on Nebraska’s Sex Offender Registry, but a 12-year-old boy who recently moved to the state could end up there by the letter of the law. His family is fighting the move, and a federal judge already has agreed to block the Nebraska State Patrol from adding his name and picture to the registry and public website while the civil case is pending. Full Article
Read MoreVT: Lawmakers ask – How good does sex registry need to be?
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont lawmakers are grappling with how close to perfect the state’s sex offender registry needs to be before offenders’ addresses are posted online. Vermont in 2009 passed a law saying the registry had to have a clean audit from the state auditor of accounts before addresses could be posted. A 2010 audit found many errors; a follow-up audit last July found what Auditor of Accounts Doug Hoffer labeled “critical errors” in 11 percent of cases. Full Article
Read MoreLocals Call California’s Sex Offender Registry Into Question
Sex offenders are required by law to register their name, photo and address online at meganslaw.ca.gov. A disclaimer on the website says The Department of Justice does not assess the specific risk that any convicted sex offender on the site will commit another offense. However, the website does have a Risk Assessment Score. Another disclaimer says that score determines the statistical probability that an offender will commit another sexual offense. Risk assessment scores for many of the sex offenders on the registry are currently left blank. Full Article
Read MoreFL: To Entrap an Innocent
Florida police use sex-crime laws to bait men with no apparent interest in underage trysts. After a year-long investigation, WTSP, a CBS affiliate in Tampa Bay, Florida, has uncovered an alarming pattern of police trying to entrap innocent adults in sex crimes. The stings follow the basic pattern familiar to anyone who has seen To Catch a Predator, except “many of the men whose mugshots have been paraded out by local sheriffs in made-for-TV press conferences were not seeking to meet children online. Instead, they were minding their own business,…
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