SC - WHERE LOOKS AND LIES CAN TAKE YOU

The following was sent to us via the "Tell Us Your Story" form and posted with the users permission.

By Charles Farabee:
I'm Charles Farabee, and I'm a sex offender in South Carolina. I moved to Clinton South Carolina in 1996 from Thomasville North Carolina. Now before I moved to South Carolina I never been in any serious trouble with the law period. With me being a new face of the Clinton South Carolina population I met new people, new friends & new relatives. In 1998 I dealt with 2 girls that looked very adult like. They were living in a children's home/private school at the time. They told me their ages which they stated legal ages. So I did take their word for it cause again they did look extremely adult like. I dealt with 1 of them for about 4 days and we had sex maybe twice out of the 4 days we seen each other, and the 5th night I ended up having sex with the other female, but soon after that the person who was running that place at the time ended up pressing charges and I ended up getting charged and arrested for 2 counts of CRIMINAL SEXUAL CONDUCT W/MINOR. Now the females did admit to everything on their behalf during the questioning, preliminary hearing & at court. So I ended up getting 10 years suspended to 5 years probation. I didn't do no prison time, but come to find out 1 female was 12 and the other female was between 14 or 15 years old which I stated that I didn't know that which I honestly didn't. At the time I had just became 21 in march. I just feel that a person like myself and a few others who may have been tricked and lied to shouldn't have to live life like this. I'm no threat in no manner, but I have to live on with life suffering from this to where it's extremely hard to get a job even in restaurants cause I'm labeled as a sex offender. It's hard to find a place of residence, hard in so many ways in life while the victims of the past get to live on happily ever after and progress in life and I don't think that's right I shouldn't be doing a life sentence out here in the free world. I ran into a trap I did not see and made a mistake by it. Sex offenders in cases like me shouldn't be treated to where we living as the living dead to where we don't deserve anything not even life itself. Now I can't speak on the violent, sick minded & habitual sex offenders. I can only speak of me and those who are like me cause we don't deserve this.... Thanks for reviewing this!!

SC - Everyone not treated the same

The following was sent to us via the "Tell Us Your Story" form and posted with the users permission.

By Steven:
I was arrested in 2009 for touching a teenager while extremely intoxicated. No excuse but still it happened. It was never something that I intended to do or planned but still the same it happened. I plead to Lewd act and was given 6 years in prison and 5 years probation. I served 3 years in prison and took the 6 month course for sex offenders in prison. Upon release, I still had to take a year long course at $25 a week, Pay probation $20 a week and was put on a monitor which is another $40 a week. Total I had to pay $85 a week and just getting out of prison had no job. Thanks to family I was able to keep up the payments and after a year am still unable to get work due to the charge. I have finished the class and now only have to pay $60 a week. Of course if you do not pay they will violate you but no one will hire me. Now I have been told that the monitor that I am wearing will continue the rest of my life due to new South Carolina laws (or as long as I am on the registry). I don't mind the registry but the monitoring seems to me to go to far. The biggest thing is that several of the guys that were in my year long class had the same charge or worse charges, but they are not on monitoring .Most did not even get prison time. It all depends on how much money you have and what attorney you had and the sentence can be night and day! The law states that anyone with CSC1 or Lewd act must me on electronic monitoring but yet not all judges put them on it. I am fortunate in that I have family helping me, but not everyone does. And what happens when my probation is over? If I move out of state will I still have to have the monitor? I am 60 years old and this was the first time I have ever been accused of something like this. Sometimes I think that it would have been better if I had murdered someone, they don't have to register. It just sucks. But I am going to try and take it to court as my probation term nears its end. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In Defense of Rational Sex Offender Public Policy and Laws

Original Article

10/17/2013

By Christopher Zoukis

The past several weeks I have been researching the sex offender laws applicable for sex offenders living in Rhode Island and in South Carolina. While not surprising, the laws are anything but rational and they are certainly not empirically based. This goes across the board, not merely in Rhode Island or South Carolina but at both the state and federal levels.

The Adam Walsh Act of 2006 (Wikipedia) requires sex offenders to be classified in one of three tiers of supervision. Tier 1 sex offenders have lighter restrictions placed upon them (e.g., report to their sheriff's department every year, most likely be on the public sex offender registry, and comply with any state or local residency requirements), while Tier 3 sex offenders have extraordinarily onerous restrictions (e.g., report to their sheriff's department every 90 days, possibly be placed on GPS monitoring, have regular in-home and at work spot inspections, etc.).

On its face it looks as if sex offenders are monitored -- and have restrictions -- according to their risk of reoffense. After all, there are distinct qualifications for each tier assignment. But what is the difference between a Tier 1, Tier 2, and a Tier 3 sex offender? The answer to this, not surprisingly, is not much. There are some differences in offense conduct or frequency, but not many. To put this in context, there are very few Tier 1 sex offenders compared to the number of Tier 2 sex offenders. And there are fewer Tier 3 sex offenders than Tier 2 sex offenders. But most sex offenders are merely grouped together in the second tier category.

If we accept that most sex offenders will be placed in Tier 2, with those particular restrictions and registration protocols, then we are also accepting that the one-size-fits-most view be employed. This results in a dilution of effective sex offender community monitoring. Essentially, those with a higher risk and those with a lower risk, who are clumped into Tier 2 sex offender registration and monitoring requirements, will receive the same level of community monitoring, outpatient treatment, and communal notification. This seems like a foolhardy public policy decision, from both a public safety and fiscal perspective.

Ask yourself this, does it sound right to have someone who is known to sexually assault children or women at a bar on the same level of community monitoring as someone who freely downloaded child pornography on their computer? It doesn't sound right to me. In fact, the situation gets worse when you take into account that Tier 1 sex offenders are placed on the sex offender registry for fifteen years, Tier 2 twenty-five years, and Tier 3 for life.

Read the rest of the article

SC - Former W. Columbia officer (Andrew Haney) charged with sending obscene material to a minor

Andrew Haney

Original Article

10/09/2013

West Columbia - A former West Columbia police officer is facing a charge of sending obscene material to a minor.

Officials with the West Columbia Police Department say Andrew Haney was arrested following a federal investigation.

He is accused of sending obscene material to a girl under the age of 16 in Pleasant Hill, Iowa.

A spokesperson for the West Columbia Police Department says Haney was fired at the time of his arrest.

SC - Ruling could lead to change in sex offender monitoring

Original Article

09/24/2012

By Jody Barr

COLUMBIA (WIS) - The state Supreme Court is working on a ruling that could allow some sex offenders to avoid mandatory lifetime GPS monitoring.

State law requires people convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct or lewd act on a child to fall under lifetime monitoring if they violate parole or probation.

A Greenville County woman is challenging that law after a probation violation forced her into wearing an ankle monitor for the rest of her life.

A jury convicted then 26-year-old [name withheld] of performing lewd acts on a 14-year-old girl, a relationship she admits to.

[name withheld]' attorney, Christopher Scalzo, asked the court to allow sex offenders an opportunity for a hearing, so a judge can decide whether they pose the threat that would require lifetime monitoring.

The justices' comments from the bench recognized that not all offenders pose equal threats to children.

"This was what an 8 month relationship she had with an underage person. Clearly wrong, clearly illegal, but, there was no predatory nature," said Justice Kay Hearn.

"She was a sex offender, she was convicted, she was punished, but when you talk about whether to monitor her for the rest of her life because she poses a danger simply because she violated parole, then what they're simply saying is one size does not fit all," said Chief Justice Jean Toal.

State probation attorney john Aplin admitted flaws with the law, but says his agency has no choice but to enforce the mandatory lifetime monitoring law.

"I'm not going to stand up here and say this is the best statute I've even seen written, and could it be done better," said Aplin.

[name withheld]' attorneys want either a chance for a hearing or a review at some point, but for those who live as victims of sex offenders, any change in the law, they say, is going easy on all sex offenders.

"It's not a far-fetched belief to believe that's softening of the sex offender laws in this state," said victims advocate Veronica Kunz. "If anything, the laws need to be a lot stronger."

Kunz heads the state's Victims Assistance Network and is outspoken about the sexual abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her father. She says lifetime monitoring of all sex offenders gives their victims the peace they need to carry on.

"If they're out walking around trying to live their life, they owe crime victims the duty to be accountable to law enforcement for their whereabouts," Kunz said.

A ruling could allow offenders a chance to have a judge decide whether they fit the case for someone who needs 24-7 monitoring. We don't know how long it could take for a ruling to come down.