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

MO - Lawsuit claims Missouri's program for sexually violent predators should be shut down

Original Article

02/07/2014

By Jesse Bogan

ST. LOUIS - New filings in a class action lawsuit call on 200 rapists and pedophiles to be released, claiming the Missouri Department of Mental Health program that is supposed to treat them is “government at its worst.”

Sex Offender Rehabilitation and Treatment Services, or SORTS, was created to work with sex offenders after they complete prison sentences. Civil courts determined the men were too likely to reoffend because of a “mental abnormality.” Now as mental health patients, they are held indefinitely in secure facilities in Farmington and Fulton until their risk falls to acceptable levels.

Since the program started in 1999, nobody has completed treatment. The lawsuit alleges the $25 million program is mismanaged, underfunded, overcrowded and is essentially a prison disguised as a mental hospital.

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2009, claims problems with SORTS “arose out of the belief that the imprisonment of those branded as sexually violent predators were so reviled that no one would notice nor care when tucked away.”

The Post-Dispatch recently reported on internal state emails and memos that suggest that even administrators and employees of the program worried about its validity. In 2009, Missouri Department of Mental Health director Keith Schafer wrote that SORTS would be a “sham” if nobody completed treatment and was released. A former chief of operations wrote that the program was a “disaster waiting to happen.”

Those notes and others were included in Thursday’s court filing.

Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Debra Walker said department officials hadn’t received notice of the new filing. She said the issue was “a matter for the courts.” The Missouri attorney general’s office, which litigates the civil commitment cases, also declined to comment.

Missouri is one of 20 states that has civil commitment laws for sexually violent predators. Many of the programs started in the 1990s after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Kansas’ law. Other states have fared much better than Missouri in showing that patients can progress through the program, according to the lawsuit.

By February 2005, Wisconsin granted 46 conditional releases and 20 final discharges; Illinois granted 18 and 1, respectively.

Missouri recently granted its first three residents conditional release, allowing them to leave SORTS a few hours at a time with strict guidelines. Missouri also recently opened an annex inside the facility at Farmington that is supposed to teach eight residents life skills they’ll need when they get out some day.

About 20 people are admitted to the program each year.

Plaintiff attorney Eric Selig, who recently took over the civil action lawsuit as lead counsel, said closing the facility was the ultimate goal.

The suit claims SORTS is “so far gone that it is irretrievably broken, cannot be salvaged and thus must immediately be shut down and all of its inhabitants set free. The constitution demands no other relief.”

Documents attached to the suit point to internal concerns about overcrowding. One 2009 report said the situation is “placing accreditation efforts at risk.”

In another email attached to the suit, Dr. Jonathan Rosenboom, former director of behavioral services at SORTS, wrote that he was “often struck by the unsettling conclusion that direct patient care is one of the last priorities when stacked against all of the other expectations.”

The Department of Mental Health has said the program meets national standards for hospital care and that overall funding has not been reduced since 2009.

In all, more than 500,000 internal records have been obtained in the lawsuit. The suit alleges that documents were previously withheld on the “erroneous claim that emails had been inadvertently purged from its computers and servers.”

MO - Former cop (Richard Calvino) pleads guilty to sexual acts with a minor

Richard Calvino

Original Article

01/28/2014

Less than 24 hours before going to trial, a former police officer pleaded guilty to engaging in sexual acts with a minor while he was on the Osage Beach police force.

Richard Calvino entered the guilty plea Tuesday afternoon before Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Hayden.

Calvino was scheduled for a jury trial in Morgan County on a change of venue. The trial was to get underway on Wednesday, Jan. 29.

Calvino, 59, was originially charged with sexual abuse in the first degree, sodomy, deviate sexual assault in the first degree with a victim aged 14-15, sexual assault in the first degree with a victim aged 14-15 and deviate sexual assault in the second degree with a victim aged 16-17.

Calvino pleaded guilty to two counts — deviate sexual assault in the first degree with a victim aged 14-15 and deviate sexual assault in the second degree with a victim aged 16-17. Calvino was given a suspended imposition of sentence, five years of supervised probation. He will register as a sex offender and must complete a sex offender class through probation and parole. Calvino will not serve jail time.

The charges against Calvino stemmed from allegations that date back from 1984 to 1990.

The filing of the case in 2011 came just within statute of limitations for such crimes in Missouri. Under state statute, the filing of charges for alleged sexual offenses against children may be filed within 20 years of the time the alleged victim turns 18-years-old.

The victim in this case turned 38 in 2011.

The charges were filed after an investigation by the Missouri State Highway Patrol in 2010 which began after the victim had memories resurface while undergoing therapy in Florida as an adult. She had begun seeing the therapist in May 2009.

The victim's age ranged from 11 to 16 during the time frame in question. Calvino's age ranged from 31 to 37.

During the Highway Patrol investigation, the victim had conversations with Calvino by phone, email and in person that officers recorded and preserved for evidence.

During an interview with a Highway Patrol investigator on Dec. 9, 2010, Calvino denied having any sexual relations with the girl.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges when he was arraigned and posted a $5,000 bond.

Since the case was filed in Camden County three years ago, the case has bounced from Camden to Morgan County and has been scheduled to go to trial at least four times.

Following the charges, Calvino continued to be employed with the Osage Beach Police Department until city administrator Nancy Viselli said he recently no longer had a job with the city.

Calvino was notified by the city on July 19, 2013, that, unless he could return to his job full time without charges pending against him, his last day would be Jan. 20, 2014.

Calvino's first day of employment with the city was July 1, 1981. At the time of his arrest, he was a lieutenant with the department.

MO - The tragedy of placing juveniles on the sex offender registry

Original Article

01/29/2014

By Pamela Dorsey

The Missouri Legislature overwhelmingly passed legislation last year that would remove many juvenile offenders from the public sex offender registry, which is posted on the Internet. It would not have lessened the punishment for any offender. Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed the legislation and then launched a misleading campaign in which he highlighted some of the worst offenders on the registry.

Let me tell you my son Zach’s story, as it gives a very different perspective. It shows how harmful the sex offender registry can be for juveniles who should not even be classified as sex offenders, much less be on a public registry for the world to see.

Zach was a typical boy. He loved playing baseball and even made the all-star team with the American Legion. He loved hunting with his dad, being with his friends, playing video games and so often making us laugh. He was a kind-hearted, life-loving spirit.

At age 14, Zach was coming into his sexuality. Like many of his friends, he searched the Internet for girls his own age. But girls his age in sexually explicit pictures are classified as child pornography. When he downloaded them, he had no idea he was breaking the law. He believed that if something was readily available on the Internet, it must be OK.

Through the years he randomly viewed his downloaded library. One of the videos Zach downloaded was tagged by a federal agency that tracks child pornography. A few months after Zach turned 18, in 2008, St. Charles County deputy sheriffs were at our door to confiscate his computer. He was later called to the sheriff’s office for an interview. He went willingly and without a lawyer, thinking he had done nothing wrong.

At 6:30 on the morning of Jan. 7, 2010, our nightmare began. Federal agents knocked on our door with an arrest warrant for Zach. My husband and I hired a lawyer, who informed us Zach was facing four to 10 years in prison. We were in complete shock. On July 1, 2010, Zach was sentenced to 40 years of supervised release and a lifetime on the sex offender registry.

Zach was also ordered to take sex therapy. The therapy was more harmful than helpful. Part of his treatment was being forced to say he received sexual gratification from watching children have sex, which he did not. If he refused, he was threatened with being kicked out of class. That would have landed him in prison.

Zach became depressed and felt hopeless. He was prescribed anti-anxiety pills by his doctor. The doctor told me he believed Zach’s anxiety was caused by the treatment he was getting from his mandated sex therapy classes.

Zach would often sit in his room, a prison of its own. He felt like a freak, an outcast and completely powerless. I can only imagine what it is like knowing all your friends are at the first wedding ever in their circle of friends, dancing and celebrating at an occasion you should be part of but are not allowed.

Those on the sex offender registry cannot go anywhere where children might be present. Not to a friend’s wedding. Not to their grandmother’s funeral. Not to a baseball game. Not even to McDonald’s for a hamburger.

Zach was working for our family’s roofing company but was told he couldn’t work on a roof that housed children or had play equipment in the yard. He attempted to find employment elsewhere because children are in almost every home on which we work. But no one wanted to hire a registered sex offender.

Zach tried to look happy and calm for me, but I saw the fear and panic in his eyes. It was a hopeless situation for a 20-year-old boy who made a mistake when he was just a child. On Nov. 4, 2010, I lost my son. The autopsy report deemed his death an accidental overdose. Those of us who knew him well thought he just wanted to escape his pain.

The laws are terribly flawed. Those in Zach’s situation are dealt a “one size fits all” punishment. The laws need to be changed. What happened to Zach and our family should never have to happen to others.

MO - Sex offender restrictions (User submitted)

The following was sent to us via the contact form and posted with the users permission.

Dear M, you may want to contact the local sheriff to help give you the information you need or to point you in the right direction. Also check out the following website.

By M:
I cannot find anywhere, what the actual laws and restrictions for a sex offender are. I am currently the fiance of a now convicted sex offender, he was sentenced this September 2013, and will be home from the DOC in January. But I want to be prepared to know what he is and is not allowed to do. Also, do all the restrictions apply to every sex offender? Thanks.

MO - Juvenile sex offenders say the crime doesn't fit the time

Original Article

10/16/2013

SPRINGFIELD - "My face is blacked out because I am ashamed for everyone to know what I am," says Convicted Sex offender _____.
- But leave it up to the news media to splash your name all over the article!

Missouri considers _____ a sex offender, after one decision he made 15 years ago with a 14 year old girl when he was living in Washington.

"One thing led to another and we ended up having consensual sex," he says.

That's considered to be a crime in Washington. _____ served time in juvenile hall for the crime, even though the sex was consensual.

"It wasn't rape, wasn't child molestation. It wasn't anything with a baby, it wasn't a violent crime and yet I am still paying."

_____ has tried to move on with his life, he even joined the army. But, his past still haunts him.

"Even with my military record and my degrees in school, I am still overlooked and passed. It sucks," he says.

"There's a whole coax of people who are accused, plead guilty that didn't have that mindset that don't have that same mental makeup as some of the people who are on the list," says Attorney Adam Wood.

Wood says the problem is with how the registry is run, separating the consensual crimes from those that were not.

"The list is all encompassing list and it doesn't differential between those two types of people and that's a big issue," he says.

It's an issue that _____ deals with every day of his life.

"If you're going to judge me on something that happened 15 years ago for the person I am today, then shame on you. Shame on you," says _____.

There was a push a few months ago for a bill that would allow people 18 and under to no longer appear on the registry. But, it did not get passed.

MO - Bill Focuses on Sex Offender Home-Buyers

Original Article

01/21/2013

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) - Concern about protecting children has spurred a southwestern Missouri lawmaker to propose legislation that would require real estate agents to warn other people when they represent a prospective home buyer who is a sex offender.

But Rep. Charlie Davis said he is not pushing for his proposal to become law this year and merely wants to spark discussion. Davis said he focused first on real estate agents because they generally are involved whenever new people move into a community.

Sex offenders “have the right to live in a community if they want to, but it’s also the right of the families to know if there is a member in their community that is a convicted sex offender against children so we can make sure our children are aware of it and it doesn’t happen to them,” said Davis, R-Webb City.

The legislation calls for sex offenders who plan to buy property to report their criminal past to their real estate agent. The buyer’s real estate agent then would disclose that information in writing before the sale to the real estate agent for the seller. In addition, the buyer’s real estate agent would need to disclose a client’s sex offender status to neighbors living within a half-mile after the deal is completed.

See Also:

• Webb City lawmaker backs down from bill focusing on sex offender home-buyers
• Missouri Rep. Sponsors, Kills Sex Offender Bill

Read the entire article here

MO - Sex offender information has been miscalculated

Original Article

01/08/2013

By BRENNAN DAVID

A computer program used by the Boone County Sheriff's Department to determine restrictions on sex offenders contains inaccurate measurements, and deputies will have to review all current offenders to determine whether they are in compliance with the law.

Last week, a registered sex offender living in a group home was asked to relocate when the sheriff's department learned the geographic information system, or GIS, used by the department contained measurements that are incorrectly calculated. The offender, [name withheld], had been living in the home and has since been relocated to a different group home.

The home was discovered to be within 1,000 feet of Lange Middle School, and [name withheld] can't live within 1,000 feet of a school. [name withheld]  21, was convicted of a deviant sexual assault against a 17-year-old Mexico, Mo., woman in 2008.

The group home, Prosperous Journey Men's Transition House, is operated by JAJ LLC. The group home allows as many as eight men to live there at a time and provides affordable, temporary housing for all offenders, not just sex offenders.

[name withheld]'s acceptance would have been reliant on approval by the Missouri Department of Corrections of his home plan, said Randy Hodill, executive director of Love In the Name of Christ, or Love INC. He said that home plan might have included information from the sheriff's department concerning the group home's proximity to neighboring schools.

Initial calculations placed Lange just feet outside the required 1,000-foot restriction, sheriff's department Detective Jessica Jameson said, but the sheriff's department has since learned the GIS was calculating distances from the center of schools to the center of homes. That measurement was sufficient for [name withheld] to reside at the Grace Ellen address, but that's not how Boone County detectives enforce restrictions.

State statute only provides distances, not guidance on how to measure, such as from property line to property line or door to door.

For the past four years, detectives have enforced distances from property line to property line, Detective Andrea Luntsford said. That measurement started when the Boone County Prosecuting Attorney's Office recommended it instead of measuring door to door.

A measurement from the group home's property line to the school's property line was within 1,000 feet, Luntsford said. [name withheld] was not arrested for violating restrictions because he was permitted to live at the Grace Ellen residence.

[name withheld] could not be reached for comment.

Luntsford and Jameson are sex offender coordinators for the sheriff's department and are now responsible for recalculating distances for all 280 sex offenders who must abide by restrictions within Boone County.

As of Friday afternoon, [name withheld] was the only sex offender found to not be in compliance, but Jameson admitted they are very early in the process.

"We've been looking," Jameson said. "We suspect others are in neighborhoods nowhere close to schools."

A second sex offender now resides at the Grace Ellen property but is not required to relocate per regulations related to his conviction.

About 15 of the 280 sex offenders in Boone County are homeless, and their whereabouts are unknown.

Because state law does not guide law enforcement agencies how to measure these distances, online resources such as the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Sex Offender Registry might contain different information than local law enforcement agencies.

A Missouri State Highway Patrol representative could not be reached for comment.

MO - Former St. Louis County Police officer (Cedric Webb) pleads guilty to 1999 teen sex crimes

Cedric Webb

Original Article

09/21/2012

By Dave Keiser

Clayton (KSDK) - A former St. Louis County Police officer has pleaded guilty to three statutory sodomy charges stemming from an inappropriate sexual relationship he had with an underage teenage girl in 1999.

In exchange for the plea, 44 year old Cedric Webb of unincorporated north St. Louis County was ordered to serve 160 days in the county jail, and two suspended five year prison terms for the crimes.

Webb was also placed on supervised probation for the next five years.

Investigators brought their case to prosecutors earlier this year after the victim noticed Webb while she was running errands and felt the need to report to police what had occurred more than a decade earlier.