PA - Pennsylvania's Megan's Law mandate unfairly punishes offenders, court rules

Original Article

10/14/2014

By Peter Hall

Some of Pennsylvania's latest sex offender registration requirements run afoul of a constitutional ban on laws that create new penalties for people who have already paid for their crimes, the Commonwealth Court has ruled.

The panel of seven Commonwealth Court judges also found, however, that requiring sex offenders to reveal their email addresses and other online aliases is not a violation of the First Amendment right to anonymous speech.

_____, convicted in 2001 of sexual assault, had already served his prison sentence and probation when the fourth revision of Pennsylvania's version of Megan's Law, named the Sexual Offender Registration and Notification Act, took effect in 2012.

_____ argued that the revisions to Megan's Law were so much more punitive than the earlier version of the law that they violated provisions in the state and federal constitutions that prevent states from imposing tougher penalties for crimes than were in place when they were committed.

He also argued that the new requirement to provide information about his online identities violated his right to anonymous online speech because his crime did not involve a minor on the Internet.

_____, 63, was convicted in Montgomery County Court of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at a suburban Philadelphia restaurant. His attorney, Burton A. Rose of Philadelphia, had not read the decision and declined to comment. State police officials were unavailable to comment.

In an opinion for the unanimous panel, Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer rejected _____'s claims with regard to a majority of the new registration requirements, including mandates to appear in person to register four times a year and to provide extensive personal information, palm prints and DNA samples, plus advance notice of international travel.

Jubelirer wrote that each of those requirements is related to public safety and not intended as a punishment.

Failure to comply with the requirements is a felony punishable by a five-year prison sentence, according to the opinion.

Read the entire story

MO - Making money off sex offender information

Original Article

10/05/2014

By Garrett Bergquist

NEW BLOOMFIELD - How much money would you pay to know if any sex offenders live in your area?

Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Kids Live Safe charges its subscribers $29.97 per month, or $59.88 per year, to tell them where registered sex offenders live in relation to their houses, schools or other places they frequent. Users can set up email alerts for up to four addresses, install filters to monitor their children's online activity, and create profiles of their children to give to law enforcement if their children ever disappear.

Here's the catch: The sex offender information Kids Live Safe provides at cost can be accessed for free through the Missouri State Highway Patrol's website.

Detective Tom O'Sullivan, of the Boone County Sheriff's Department, said state and federal law require anyone who commits a sex crime to register as a sex offender. The registry includes a description of the person and their vehicle, where they live and work and what crime they committed. Missouri law requires the Highway Patrol to make such information available through its website at no cost.

Kids Live Safe representatives turned down multiple requests to speak on the record for this story. A company representative reached by phone said the subscription pays for tools government-run online databases cannot provide, such as the email alerts and filtering software.

Rest of the story

FL - Law enforcement may have entrapped alleged sexual predators

Operation Home Alone

Original Article

01/29/2014

By Noah Pransky

PINELLAS COUNTY - A document obtained by 10 News indicates law enforcement may have crossed the line when trying to round up alleged sexual predators over the weekend -- and defense attorneys say entrapment cases could be built around the evidence.

The multi-agency sting, led by the Pinellas Co. Sheriff's Office and Clearwater Police Department, netted 35 arrests in "Operation Home Alone." The effort was coordinated by the region's Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force.

ICAC guidelines instruct undercover officers to "allow the investigative target to set the tone, pace, and subject matter of the online conversation."

But a Florida man, who says he responded to the officers' Craigslist ad, sent 10 News an alleged e-mail chain that indicates law enforcement is willing to bend, or break, their own ICAC guidelines to get "targets" to talk about sex with children.

In the exchange, an officer posing as a 12-year-old girl repeatedly engaged the man, who indicated she was too young to be on Craigslist. The topic of sex was also first introduced by the officer, an apparent violation of ICAC guidelines.

"There's no question they blur the lines," said defense attorney Jeffrey Brown of law enforcement officers. "But I think they can blur the lines because the ultimate resolution for a defense attorney is to go to trial."

And Brown said juries seldom have sympathy for accused predators, no matter what means were used to obtain evidence. He also said bending ICAC rules isn't necessarily breaking the law.

Brown added that the officers gave defense attorneys another possible entrapment argument by posting "casual encounters" ads on adult websites and only later suggesting they were 14 or younger.

Pinellas Co. Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who was at the forefront of the Monday press conference announcing the 35 arrests, didn't make himself available to 10 Investigates for this story. But an agency spokesperson said they were reviewing the document provided by 10 Investigates.

"We are confident it was done within the process of the law and within all legal boundaries," said Pinellas Co. Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda.

See Also:

• Read the PDF of emails from Florida Scandal (Blog, Facebook)

NJ - Trying to Ban Sex Offenders from Social Media Is a Waste of Time

Original Article

01/29/2014

By Jason Koebler

New Jersey has become the latest state to try to regulate how (and if) sex offenders can use social media, an increasingly tricky problem facing legislators around the country. But privacy experts say the laws are problematic, and probably unconstitutional.

The proposed bill would require all sex offenders in New Jersey to disclose the fact on all of their social media accounts.

A similar measure was introduced, but not passed, last year. The measure has been pre-filed for the 2014 legislative session. Donna Simon, an assemblywoman who sponsored the bill, said anyone caught violating the law, if passed, could face a $10,000 fine and 18 months in prison.


“Sex offenders are very sneaky and despicable,” she said. “What they will do is they will have a myriad of screen names and other identities to use for communicating to children.”
- Underage children are not suppose to be on Facebook based on their terms of service.  Why don't you teach kids in school, or better yet, the parents be parents and teach their own children about the sharing of personal information online or talking to people they do not know?  A major study was done years ago that shows most children are approached by their peers about sex, not a stranger, although that does happen.

Of course, stopping even a small number of sexual assaults is a laudable goal, but in many cases, laws that limit social media access are quickly struck down in court, making the whole exercise nothing more than a waste of time and money. A year ago, a federal appeals judge ruled that an Indiana law that banned sex offenders from using instant messaging, social networking sites, and chat programs was unconstitutional. In that decision, a federal judge wrote that the law “targets substantially more activity than the evil it seeks to redress.”

Nathan Wessler, an attorney with the ACLU, says that New Jersey’s proposed law is a similar overreach. The law would require sex offenders to disclose all of their online accounts to law enforcement, including E-mail addresses, screen names, social media accounts, message board handles, and more. Similar provisions in laws passed in Indiana, Nebraska, Georgia, Utah, California, and Louisiana have been struck down. A law banning sex offenders from social media was struck down in North Carolina last year, but a New Jersey ban on social media for sex offenders that are out on parole was upheld.

“The reporting requirement is particularly problematic, because you have a right to engage in anonymous debate online,” Wessler said. “You have the right to ask about embarrassing medical matters online to write on the Facebook page of the Mayo Clinic or post on message boards. The government is requiring people to turn over these anonymous identities so they can watch what they’re doing online even when it’s protected anonymous political speech.”

Wessler says that besides being unconstitutional, the requirement is “onerous and impractical,” because it requires disclosure of things such as randomly-generated email addresses from Craiglist and disclosure of accounts that may have long-since been forgotten about.

The New Jersey law is modeled on a law passed in 2012 in Louisiana and goes a step further, too. It “requires person who are required to register as a sex offender to provide notification of that fact on social networking sites” and also has to include “notice of the crime for which he was convicted, the jurisdiction of conviction, a description of his physical characteristics, and his residential address.” The offender must also link to their sex offender profile on a social networking site.

That’s a lot of information, and a lot of it is impossible, logistically, to follow through with, Wessler says.

“It is literally impossible to include all that information in 140 characters, so anyone on the registry who wanted to use Twitter would be automatically violating the law,” he said, forcing people to “choose between complying with this restriction or giving up the ability to engage in conversation in what has become the new town square.”

Some social media networks, such as Facebook and Match.com, already ask that sex offenders not register for their sites in their terms of service.

All of this may sound overly sympathetic towards sex offenders, but laws that do mainly superficial things such as trying to ban sex offenders from social media run the risk of diverting attention from other prevention efforts. The stereotypical image of a creepy old man preying on unknowing children is a popular—and certainly scary—one, but in reality, few sex offenders use social media to perpetrate their crimes.

“Numbers suggest that Internet-initiated sex crimes account for a salient but small proportion of all statutory rape offenses and a relatively low number of sexual offenses committed against minors overall,” according to a 2008 study published in American Psychologist (PDF).

More than 90 percent of sex offenders personally know their child victims, and in over 50 percent of cases, the perpetrator is a family member—far from a creepy stranger they met online.

“These laws end up being counterproductive,” Wessler said. “They’re not tailored at all to addressing the harm the state should be concerned about. Anytime a legislature relies on inaccurate stereotypes of the problem, they’re diverting attention away from ways to address the real problem. It can create a false sense of security and divert law enforcement resources.”

And, if the goal is to rehabilitate sex offenders who have served their time in jail, requiring them to abstain from social media can seriously hinder that. Because sex offenders often have a difficult time finding jobs, many are self-employed and start their own businesses. If they want to start a social media page for their business, they’d be required to comply with the law.

“A lot of times, they’ll try to make their own goods and sell them online or start a business that you can’t successfully do without marketing online,” Wessler said. “Complying with this is probably going to completely destroy their ability to promote that business online.”

Good or Evil vs. Sick or Well - Gonzales' SORNA rule will overflow US prisons

View the article here | Other articles from this author

04/24/2007

Of course I know why none of the politicians are questioning US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the “Interim Rule” called SORNA which he has been bragging about as his great crime fighting contribution.

But the timing of it with the comment period ending next week on April 30, 2007 compels me to do the right thing by bringing this sneaky, under-handed move by Gonzales to everyone’s attention. And to go one step further and urge that we make an outcry to put an end to all his initiatives in progress.

Somebody must be the watchdog of our Constitution and stand up against all the ridiculous fear and hatemongering that the Republican party thinks is going to work to build their party and create more law enforcement jobs across the country.

So I guess that once again it falls to me to sound the alarm on something that will have devastating effects on millions of lives, most of whom had nothing to do with molesting a child. SORNA is an end run cooked up Gonzales and cohorts, no better than criminals in office for political purposes only and it needs to be halted immediately.

Yesterday’s news in Oklahoma and Florida where newspapers carried articles that this sex offender hysteria isn’t working out in their states.

In Kentucky today, sex offenders won a lawsuit after a judge ruled that residency restrictions are nothing more than a "political placebo." link.

It's good that the impracticality of monitoring people who had nothing to do with a violent crime against a child is becoming more apparent. But the destruction of families such as those in the Duke Rape Case is shattering to a young person, even when justice is finally served which is extremely rare.

Most people who read my column don’t know any actual child molesters. The snatch-and-run type is just a big bogeyman scare tactic that Republican politicians have dreamed up for the most part. About 50 children per year are actually killed by a severely mentally ill child molester according to statistics from the Bureau of Justice. About one child per state, yet such laws are merely vengeance on the mentally ill and do nothing to prevent the mental illness, costing billions and taking away from other programs which really do benefit ALL children.

More than 93% of child molestation cases that are actually real and not the result of a nasty divorce or child custody dispute occur within the circle of family and friends. About half the “child molesters” are under the age of 18 years old which means that kids are being destroyed for life, a counter-productive practice that is more mean-spirited as mistakes than the mistakes they may have or may not have made.

In California, we don’t have tiers, so the minor violations such as urinating in public, mooning, and indecent exposure are lumped into the same category and child murder. It’s ridiculous and it’s a huge lie told by people who were elected to office to serve the interests of law enforcement labor unions and that who ugly-machine bureaucracy.

Unlike another other junior prison reformer who has taken dirty money to promote and lobby for the pornography industry, as a mother and grandmother I would never take one dime to that kind of sleazy work. I believe that exposure to pornography at a young age worsens the problems. Next year, 2008 marks my 40th year as a California journalist and while I do truly love the First Amendment, I would never take tainted money to promote pornography.

What I am standing up for here is the Constitutional rights of mostly young men (some women) who are being destroyed for life by a political party that pretends to want to limit government and build families. What hypocrites! There are more than one million women and children connected to a “sex offender” in California alone who are on the verge of having to live under a bridge. We have little or no justice in our state with the prison guard’s union buying all the legislative votes and putting them into office. I am here for those women and children who are at risk of being forced to live under a bridge or having their family members attacked over false and/or ridiculous allegations.

Until injustice knocks on your own door, it probably isn't real that a minor act can destroy your son or daughter for life. But the goal of the Republican politicians is to keep these prisons stocked with fresh humans by any means possible. All it takes to be swept off for life and marked with the Scarlet Letter is an accusation. There need not be any evidence, DNA, witness or anything solid.

We even have sentences being extended in prison because the mentally ill masturbate in their cells. No kidding, the district attorneys in California are prosecuting mentally ill prisoners and there is a CDC rules change hearing coming up on May 7 to impose even harsher rules that mentally ill people who should be in hospitals, not prisons, won’t be able to follow.

I don’t want to get too far off topic in this particular column, what I am asking everyone to do to help prompt an investigation into SORNA, a harsh, ridiculous, deceitful “interim rule” is write to National Level Journalists at the Washington Post, New York Times, so they can see that what Gonzales is bragging about is nothing that any American should be proud of doing.

Expanding government and destroying more families for life when retributive justice does nothing to protect children. These are certainly not the Republicans of my father's day. Who are these people in power over us anyway and why the heck are we allowing them to be there?

Below is a sample letter that I’ve drafted for you. Please word it in your own language and send it today in a large red, white and blue envelope. Of course nobody is going to vote on this because Gonzales has the total power to pass something this horrible all on his own, even though he is thoroughly disgraced.

But we need to mark the record that some patriots cared about justice and objected to SORNA and the hatemongering that it promotes.

Besides the letter to Washington D.C., please reach out to the journalists who have courage to call out wrongs. My educated guess is that we certainly aren’t going to find courage for this first demand for an investigation into SORNA in a politician. It is very good news that politicians of both parties have scorned Gonzales, now he can know what that feels like although his crimes in perverting justice are much worse than some of the other "perversions" he’s persecuting to please the President and members of his own party.

It is very good news that CNN reports that the Vermont Senate has called for the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney. It would be a good idea to stop all critical legislation since we do not have trustworthy leaders running the country, and we can start with SORNA which appears to be an end run around the regular process of deciding something so important.

Here’s the letter which I drafted on the run, there are so many stupid bills coming at us that we don’t which hole in the dam to plug first and so many people not helping out there who should be as their liberty goes up in smoke. Our UNION people are posting and writing but when we are protesting an issue on the national level, it takes tens of thousands of people participating to be noticed. On the State level it takes a few thousand. There is a big difference. So pitch in, all women and children should matter and nobody should be banished from society because they’re mentally ill. This destruction of families must stop now.

We could all use a lot more healing and restorative justice and bigger emphasis on prevention to put an end to this witch hunt mentality meant to scare voters into building the bureaucracy. Don’t fall for it and fight back with your pen and your vote. If you subscribe to my daily newsletter and live in California, you are already learning to become a real activist for change instead of just a complainer. An eighth grader can stand up for their liberty if they can write seven sentences, and so can you!

The entire call to action is posted here.

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Begin Call to Action

You are objecting to an interim rule created by the now disgraced US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The rule if passed into permanent law will affect every sex offender in the United States and the one million women and children in California connected to them.

Please send your letter via priority mail today or tomorrow in a red, white, blue envelope so we feel like a force on the receiving end. The cut off date is April 30, 2007. Please also post comments to national level journalists who are currently missing this important change in the law done by a criminal trying to save himself - Gonzales. A sample letter for you to post online to journalists follows the sample letter that goes to David Karp, Senior Counsel. Power of numbers is the only prayer we have of being heard. Just do YOUR share.

David J. Karp, Senior Counsel,
Office of Legal Policy,
Room 4509,
Main Justice Building, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW., Washington, DC 20530.

To ensure proper handling, please reference OAG Docket No. 117 on your correspondence.

You may view an electronic version of this interim rule at Regulations.gov. You may also comment via the Internet to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy (OLP) by e-mail to: olpregs@usdoj.gov or by using the Regulations.gov comment form for this regulation. When submitting comments electronically you must include OAG Docket No. 117 in the subject box.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Laura L. Rogers, Director, Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking; Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 202 514-4689.

David J. Karp, Senior Counsel
Office of Legal Policy, Room 4509
Main Justice Building
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20530.

Re: OAG Docket No. 117

Dear Senior Counsel Karp:

Please allow me to voice my grave concern and opposition for the Interim Rule issued as a result of the Adam Walsh Act (AWA) and SORNA by Attorney General Gonzales. This law will allow double jeopardy which is legal only because federal jurisdiction and state jurisdiction are separate. A person can now be punished by both the federal; and state government for the same violation of registration. Every state has a registry in place and this is certainly a duplicate effort and an excessively expensive and unnecessary law.

A great many people who have moved on with their lives and living law abiding and productive lives will now be re-exposed with the retroactive clause of SORNA. This is tantamount to the Salem witch hunts only now it is the families of sex offenders who will brought down with this draconian and vindictive law. This is cruel and unusual punishment, not public safety as SORNA will show places of employment in the Federal Registry which will be an open invitation to the fear and hate mongers to protest their places of work and/or physically attack them.

Posting places of employment in a federal database will stand in the way of any sex offender in California (and the nation) from being able to earn a living, no matter how minor their crime. This is completely counterproductive to the goal of reintegrating ex-felons back into society as self supporting, productive citizens. The Attorney General has said that SORNA's applicability will be to "virtually the entire existing sex offender population". Clearly the intent is cover "virtually" everyone, but there is no mention about whether Congress specifically limits what he can do. Why was this left out?

Please consider the effect this will have on the one million women and children attached to a sex offender when they cannot earn a living. Current laws have forced a group of people to live under a bridge in Florida. This is an excellent example of how this law will further affect the offenders and their families. They are unable to work and support their families or themselves The one time sex offender is lumped together with the violent sexual predator. In California, there are already laws in effect to handle the truly high risk offender and considering all sex offenders one and the same is simply not right or just.

The tiny fraction of a percentage of sex offenders who are guilty of raping and/or murdering a child are mentally ill and they belong in places of healing. They are the people who need to be removed from society for the purpose of public safety, but even this should be done in a much more healing manner, as they are most often severely mentally ill.

More than 90% of sex crimes involving a child occur within families. No registration, residency restriction or monitoring system will stop these crimes. This law is targeting an entire group of people and only a fraction of the group would possibly be stopped from a crime. We are so scared that those people who have been convicted of sex offense will re-offend, but look at the statistics.

The Department of Justice states that the average rate of recidivism is 5%, one the lowest rates among all felonies. It is an invented lie that has been perpetrated to the public that sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated and that they have a high rate of recidivism. This is simply not true. Our conservative leaders are constantly preaching about building the family and knocking the liberals for not having stricter morals, but laws such as this are destroying families over mental illness. It's barbaric, opportunistic and political grandstanding at its worst.

SORNA can be passed as Federal Interim Rule because Congress empowered Attorney General Gonzales, whose character is now being assassinated to do so. All of his initiatives should simply be cancelled. He has proven not to be trustworthy and everything he has touched is now tainted, including SORNA. He most likely wrote this rule anticipating he would need the support of fellow Republicans over the firings of the Attorneys. How can it be a good rule when Conservatives are so hell bent to over punish the severely mentally ill in order to build political careers and Gonzales so desperately needs their support. The fact that SORNA touches so many millions of lives in a destructive manner makes it as much, if not more important than the other probes.

In addition, the Attorney General fails to point out anything relative to Sec. 117 (Duty to Notify Sex Offenders of Registration Requirements and to Register) which places a requirement on him (and his office). Notification is a basic tenet of due process, is it not? Why was this left out of the Interim Rule? This is an ill conceived, poorly thought out Rule and I ask that it be struck down before we allow the invented hysteria that has pervaded our country continue to destroy families. A child is 40 times more likely to be killed by a drunk driver than a sex offender. Why are these people being ostracized, forced to live in exile and banishment, on the streets of our FREE country? This is all too reminiscent of the nightmare of Nazi Germany. That is a frightening state of affairs for our country. SORNA should be discarded immediately

Rev. B. Cayenne Bird

UNION

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Make your letter express your view and the impact on your own life or that of people whom you love, do not simply copy my letter word for word. Where's the focus on prevention and healing of the mentally ill? There are many issues not mentioned here. Please copy me on what you wrote

Please mail in a red, white and blue priority mail envelope by Tuesday night so we feel like an army because we all mailed within 48 hours of one another. Get your family members to write. Thank you for fighting for your liberty by standing up for yourself and others.

Here’s some photos of but a few of our past campaigns over the last decade. The page is being updated but you can see the thousands of hours our UNION members have invested fighting for everyone’s rights. Imagine if the 3 million people connected to a prisoner in California all voted. Better yet, imagine if they brought 20 other people to vote. We’d have none of our current problems.

If you’d like to subscribe to my daily newsletter and learn how, when, where to fight back focused on a few California campaigns at a time, please sign up here. Most of the news you see out there was written by someone who reads the UNION Daily interactive newsletter.

1union1.com

Rev. B. Cayenne Bird
UNION
P.O. Box 340371
Sacramento, Ca. 95834
http://www.1union1.com

Collier deputy fired after probe reveals sexual images on his Web site

View the article here | Courtesy of BadCopNews

04/19/2007

For about seven years Collier County sheriff’s Deputy David E. Rich, a motorcycle enthusiast, maintained a Web site chronicling his and his wife’s experiences at outdoor motorcycle events.

The Web site, which he said was meant only to be viewed by friends but had more than 50,000 hits, contained an online message board and photos of people having a good time at the events.

But in December, Rich, 38, was fired after an internal investigation revealed the Web site not only contained photos of people having innocent fun, but also of nude women and women performing oral sex. Also, during a separate investigation stemming from a failed polygraph test, Rich admitted to having witnessed online pornography involving minors, authorities said.

Rich, who is now employed with the private investigation firm Ortino Investigations, described the Web site as a “hobby-type fun thing,” and said the photos of women engaging in oral sex were posted inadvertently or were overlooked, a Sheriff’s Office report shows. And he said in an appeal that polygraph tests are extremely subjective and claimed the examiners who administered the test had a conflict of interest.

The investigation into Rich’s Web site began in July when the Sheriff’s Office received an e-mail from someone identified only as “Deputy Dan” who directed authorities to Rich’s site.

“Is this the type of person who you employ?” the letter writer asked.

When investigators opened the site they saw a photograph of a Florida motorcycle license plate licensed to Rich. The site also had a link to a page containing a collection of thousands of photographs, the investigation revealed.

Several of the photographs depicted nudity and oral sex. Others showed Rich with women in various stages of dress, from exposing their breasts to nude, the report said.

“I will volunteer and say that there’s, looking at that, there’s some pictures I did not realize that were not that, that really should not have been on this site,” Rich told investigators.

Rich told investigators that he placed warnings on the site to indicate the images were only appropriate for adults, designed the site to trigger parental software and used software to prevent search engines from pointing to his site, authorities said.

When investigators asked if he thought the site was appropriate for a member of the Sheriff’s Office, Rich replied, “Wouldn’t it be under the First Amendment protection?”

He told investigators he had the site for seven years.

“I think it’s OK,” he said.

Rich told investigators he loved his job, was proud of working at the Sheriff’s Office, and intended to work there for 25 years, the investigation revealed.

“I’m willing to work with whatever needs to be done to make it acceptable,” Rich said of the Web site.

While the investigation into the Web site was under way, a separate investigation was being conducted into Rich’s inability to pass a polygraph examination question regarding viewing underage pornographic material on the Internet.

In March 2005, Rich, who worked in the jail, took a polygraph examination as part of a request to move to road patrol. The examiner, Cpl. Scott Walters, asked Rich if he had ever viewed or been in possession of any types of child pornography since his hire date on August 19, 2003.

“Not intentionally,” Rich said.

Rich told investigators that he would go online looking for movies and clips he could watch with his wife.

“There’s a lot of things I’ll download, just doesn’t do anything for me, so I trash it, you know. Put it in the delete file and erase,” Rich said during an interview.

At one point Rich told investigators that he clicked on a video called “My Teenie Wife,” that may have indicated it contained images of a 15-year-old, according to the investigation.

“I was downloading ‘My Teen Wife.’ I think I trashed it. I think I trashed the whole thing,” Rich said during his first examination.

When the examiner asked if he actually opened the video, Rich said he didn’t remember.

“I tend to think no. I have no memory of the content,” Rich said. “I remember seeing one clip of a girl and a boy, I should say male and female. ... If the title said 15, it would have been a curiosity thing.”

Rich also told investigators he viewed an online movie called “My Girlfriend and I,” featuring two “high school”-age girls engaged in a pillow fight and kissing each other, and a video titled “Teen Prostitute Video,” where the girls appeared to be at least 18, the investigation revealed.

When asked again if he’d ever seen any pornography depicting people under 18, Rich said. “I’m sure I have. I’ll say yes.”

Determining if someone is over 18 is sometimes hard to do, Rich told investigators.

“I don’t know how old someone is because 18 years old and 17 years old is a fine line,” he said. “However, it is a legal line.”

Rich said he never intentionally sought out underage pornography, the report indicates.

“I wouldn’t want to leave an impression on someone else further down the line of people who are going to read this, to think that I’m out there searching out, physically searching, typing in the terms ‘15-year- old woman’ or ‘young wife,’ or any of those things,” Rich said.

“I’m searching with something else and that’s coming up. And like I’m trying to say apparently is that I finally said, ‘Fine, let’s see what it is,’” he said. “For me to physically take the mouse, or the touch pad on the computer, move the cursor up and click on it is obviously an intent for me to see exactly what it was after it had been brought there by other means that I was not trying to do.”

Rich failed a second polygraph with Walters and then went to Fort Lauderdale for a third polygraph with a company called Deception Control Inc. The examiner in Fort Lauderdale, Lou Criscella, said that Rich displayed “significant reactions indicative of deception,” the internal investigation said.

On December 26, Rich, who earned $49,169 a year at the jail, had his appointment withdrawn based on the totality of the two investigations, for “immoral, unlawful or improper conduct,” the Sheriff’s Office reported.

Rich was not arrested or charged with a crime.

“I will say that if the case is released to the media, and the sheriff does not have some sort of hard, concrete evidence, then there will be some suits filed against the department — his department,” Rich said in the report.

Rich appealed the decision on Jan. 9. In his appeal, Rich argued that Criscella was not an “independent examiner” because he and the first examiner, Walters, used to work together. His appeal was denied on March 23, the Sheriff’s Office reported.

In an e-mail to the Daily News on Wednesday, Rich said he did not want to be interviewed because he feared being misquoted or having his statements taken out of context. In the e-mail Rich stated the Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t accept his offer to have the agency inspect his computer, waited until after his termination to inspect his agency-issued laptop, and failed to interview any of his co-workers, friends or his wife.

“Also consider that I was, and still am, the webmaster for the Collier Deputies FOP,” Rich wrote in his e-mail. “It was well known that I was involved in attempting to unionize the CCSO, and had just been elected to the Executive Board of the Collier Deputies Lodge of the FOP.”

During the interview Rich told investigators that he had brain surgery as a child and had significant memory problems.

“I have medical evidence that I should not have been polygraphed,” Rich wrote in the e-mail. “I have a statement from a longtime polygrapher that my polygraph results could not be relied on, and also from Cpl. Scott Walter, CCSO polygrapher, that doubts the findings of my polygraphs. These are all in my file.”

Rich started working with Ortino Investigations around the time of his appeal, said Victor Ortino, who owns and manages the firm. Ortino recently announced his intention to run for Collier County sheriff in 2008.

Ortino said Rich is a “good guy” who denied viewing child pornography.

“I am confident that he is not a child molester and does not view child pornography,” Ortino said.

If the Sheriff’s Office was really concerned about Rich’s behavior, the investigation would have been resolved in a much shorter period of time, Ortino said.

“If you have a person who did something illegal, you’re going to jump on that right away,” Ortino said. “Within 30 days you’re going to have that resolved.”

Sex offender e-mail rule would waste police time

View the article here

I truly believe we have a bunch of idiots running this country. It's so easy to create new email addresses, so how will this protect anyone? If a person is intent on committing another crime, they can create a new email address in minutes and do what they have set out to do. This is more feel good, knee-jerk reactions from politicians who do not know what the hell they are doing.

04/23/2007

FALSE SENSE OF SECURITY WOULD BE PRIMARY RESULT

Requiring all sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses with the government is fad legislation that is sweeping the nation. Two states - Virginia and Kentucky - have passed it, and a dozen more, plus Congress, are considering it. California's legislators should resist the instinct to join them.

The scope of California's bill is too broad. Even if it's constitutional, it wouldn't accomplish what proponents want.

Most convicted sex offenders have to tell the police where they live and whenever they move. The proposed legislation would extend this to the virtual world. The government would not publish e-mail addresses, as it does street addresses of some Megan's Law registrants. Instead, it would provide or sell them to online social networks like MySpace, which could then deny them access to their sites. Ex-offenders who failed to give the government their e-mail addresses and online screen names could be returned to prison.

Assembly members Anthony Portantino, D-Pasadena, and Shirley Horton, R-Lemon Grove, are sponsoring AB841. Its intent is worthy: to protect children from predators contacting them through chat rooms and e-mail.

But the bill would apply to nearly 90,000 sex offenders, including those who have been off parole for decades and whose crimes involved adults, not children. The definition of a commercial social network is so vague that it could include not only MySpace and dating networks like Match.com but also sites like Amazon and eBay, in which customers can publicly comment on products.

It is already against the law for adults to try to entice children to commit sexual acts. Last year, California voters passed Proposition 83, which makes it a crime for adults to lie about their age in an effort to entrap children. These rules make sense, but there is no justification for denying access to the Internet to individuals who have shown no predisposition to endanger children.
- But it's ok for law enforcement to lie about their age in order to entrap adults? So I guess they are above the law!

People change e-mail addresses more frequently than they move. Those who want to contact children will ignore the law, but others will be inadvertently ensnared by strict reporting deadlines. They could be re-imprisoned for technical violations at a time that legislators should be looking for ways to reduce the number of inmates at overcrowded jails and prisons. Just keeping track of the changes in screen names and addresses will take substantial time and resources for law enforcement.

MySpace, to its credit, has raised safety issues. It has created a software program that tells parents if their children are faking their ages on their Internet pages. More education and oversight are needed.

But trying to deny sex offenders access to Internet sites would create a false sense of security while creating one more pointless burden for the criminal justice system.

URGENT - To All You Texans Out There, Check This Out!

Sent to me via email

If any of you Texans knows anyone who has high school or college bound kids....please help me get this message out ASAP! This bill that state representative Jerry Madden has filed ..if passed into law can and will deny students who have taken the non-conviction plea the right to a higher education. This bill has been heard once and is on the schedule this coming Monday for a 2nd hearing!

HERE WE GO AGAIN! LEAVE IT TO TEXAS TO TRY AND TAKE WHAT HAPPENED AT VTECH AND PASS MORE DRACONIAN LAWS THAT WILL HANG THE WRONG PEOPLE! Remember .... the Columbine shooter and the Vtech shooter DID NOT HAVE A CRIMINAL HISTORY RECORD! Again any of you that know some one in Texas and have their contact info....please help me get this word out.

The first part is a press release I have sent and still sending out to all media contacts, then followed with the latest update...Thanks a head of time for any help you people can give.

There is no doubt why we have to get this into a federal court. In Oct. of 06 the US Supreme Court ruled that deferred adjudication is NOT a conviction.

---

This is crucial information that you will not hear on TV or read in any newspaper. To the students: I really you all are busy studying for your future career, this information must get into the parents hands who have child that has taken the deferred adjudication plea bargain in Texas . This is one dangerous bill and it must be stopped. Deferred adjudication is NOT a conviction. The Texas state statute Article 42.12 protects you from disqualifications or disabilities that a conviction would carry!

PRESS RELEASE & PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

On behalf of the Texas Association for Justice & Legal Reform we feel it is our duty to inform parents, and all future and currently en-rolled college students on a bill that has been filed in our current legislation session.

If you or anyone you know who has accepted the non-conviction plea bargain here in Texas this bill does concern you!

First I would like to briefly explain to those who may be unaware on what deferred adjudication is; deferred adjudication is a non-conviction plea bargain. It is basically a plea bargain that was set up to give a person a second chance. As we all know in this day and time a felony is no longer what a felony use to be or should still be. Common sense should tell us, the more laws we have; the more criminals we will have. Our children are literally being nailed to the wall for the same things we did as teens and young adults.

H. B. 1367 authored by State Representative Jerry Madden if passed will have some extremely horrible ramifications for those who have taken deferred adjudication. Although the bill specifically does not mention deferred adjudication, it does mention: DPS criminal history records. To those who are unaware: THE TEXAS DPS CRIMINAL RECORDS HISTORY DOES CONTAIN DEFERRED ADJUDICATION RECORDS AND YES THESE RECORDS ARE PURCHASED AND AVAILABLE TO EVERY BACKGROUND CHECK DATABASE IN THE UNITED STATES AND TO ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO WISHED TO PURCHASE THIS CRIMINAL RECORDS HISTORY DATABASE!

The Texas State statute in the Texas Criminal code clearly states deferred adjudication is NOT a conviction! The Texas State statute clearly defines this purpose. Article 42.12 CLEARLY states:

Code 42.12 Section 5(c): "...Except as provided by Section 12.42(g), Penal Code, a dismissal and discharge under this section may not be deemed a conviction for the purposes of disqualifications or disabilities imposed by law for conviction of an offense..."

and continuing.. .

Code 42.12 Section 20:

"... If the judge discharges the defendant under this section, the judge may set aside the verdict or permit the defendant to withdraw his plea, and shall dismiss the accusation, complaint, information or indictment against the defendant, who shall thereafter be released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the offense or crime of which he has been convicted or to which he has pleaded guilty..."

The law, as quoted above, very explicitly states a person who successfully completes deferred adjudication has not been convicted and is not to suffer the penalties, disqualifications, etc that a conviction would carry.

Yes the law clearly states this is NOT a conviction, but due to the records being released and allowed to be deemed as conviction. There are literally thousands and thousands of Texan's who are suffering the horrible ramifications of making one mistake! A mistake from years back and this being the ONLY mistake they have ever made.

H. B. 1367 if passed and made into law can and will be used for the purposes of denying a student enrollment into any facility of Higher Education. It will also be used against currently enrolled students. YES THIS WILL INCLUDE DEFERRED ADJUDICATION RECORDS! Everyone should be wary of this bill. There is absolutely no way we can allow this bill to pass in its present form! PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATOR’S TO VOICE YOUR CONCERNS ON THIS BILL! WE CAN NOT DENY OUR CHILDREN AN EDUCATION OVER MISTAKES WE DID OURSELVES AS YOUNG TEENS! THIS INSANITY MUST STOP NOW!

We have taken parts of H. B. 1367 to show you exactly where these damaging affects occur in this bill. The complete bill itself can be found on the Texas Legislation website at: http://www.capitol. state.tx. us/Reports/ General.aspx After this page opens, in the upper right hand corner of the page in the bill search box, type in HB 1367.

Here is the part that should worry us all:

Sec. 411.094. ACCESS TO CRIMINAL HISTORY RECORD INFORMATION: PUBLIC OR PRIVATE INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

(c-1) Criminal history record information obtained by an institution of higher education or private or independent institution of higher education under Subsection (b)(2) or (3) may be used only for the purpose of:

(1) determining the eligibility of an applicant for admission to the institution in accordance with the admissions policies of the institution; or

(2) determining whether a currently enrolled student of the institution is eligible to remain enrolled as a student of the institution in accordance with the policies and procedures of the institution.

It doesn’t get any clearer than this, and yes this bill alone if passed could damage your rights or your child’s rights to a higher education! Please contact your legislators asking them to help stop this madness. We can NOT deny anyone an education! This is America !

Sincerely,

Beverly Lanfear

Co-founder, TAJLR

www.tajlr.com

Rob Sandifer

Co-founder, TAJLR

www.tajlr.com

LATEST UPDATE ON April 20, 2007…..URGENT REQUEST!!!!! !

ALERT!!!!!

Emergency Situation! HB 1367 Update!

In light of the recent tragic shootings/mass murders which recently took place at the Virginia Tech campus earlier this week, the Texas legislature is reacting in a typical, knee jerk style that is endangering your right to get a college education.

Rep. Jerry Madden has introduced HB 1367 which will allow colleges and universities to deny ANYONE the right to be admitted to any private or public Texas institution of higher learning who has a criminal record, including deferred adjudication.

We are desperately trying to stop this horrible bill in its tracks before it becomes the law of the land! There is still precious time to do so, but time is running out. Right now, the bill is scheduled to be heard in the House committee on Higher Education for the second time on Monday, April 23 where it will probably come out and on to the House floor for a deciding vote. We are urging all of our people to show up in committee and testify against this very, very bad bill!

I recently e-mailed Mr. Madden's office and offered a substitute bill that will exclude deferred adjudications. Down below is a recent e-mail which I sent to Mark Hey, Mr. Madden's legislative assistant. As you can see, I had quite a heated exchange with Mr. Hey during my attempt to persuade them to accept the compromise bill. I am asking each and every one of you and your friends and your family members to call Rep. Madden's office and speak to either Mr. Madden or Mark Hey and urge them to remove deferred adjudications from the bill. Their contact information is below:

Their contact info:
Madden's office: (512)-463-0544
jerry.madden@ house.state. tx.us
mark.hey@house. state.tx. us