A North Bellmore high school student searched his block on an online sex offender map last month and found something that unnerved the whole neighborhood: A Level 2 sex offender who served one year in Nassau County jail for sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl was not only living near him, but within 1,000 feet of a school, in violation of county law. Less than a week later, at a community meeting in Merrick, Nassau County Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey got an earful from a room full of angry parents who accused police of failing to notify them and thereby leaving kids at risk.
The commissioner did his best to assure the crowd that officers are aware of all registered sex offenders in their patrol areas and that the errant offender would be forced to leave. “I have a 15-year-old daughter,” one unappeased father barked. “If he comes near her you’re going to be ‘cuffing me!”
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It turns out Special Victims Section detectives had visited the sex offender’s new home prior to the meeting and shortly after he moved in on Oct. 14, which was on or about the same day that the student made the discovery and his neighbors reported it. The Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, which has a sex offender alert program, was also called into question at the meeting, but schools can’t alert parents until detectives have notified administrators—and it was that built-in lag that ticked the parents off. But if that pile-on wasn’t enough, the next day the Town of Babylon released a report that suggested the current system of sex offender restrictions and alerts, although well-intentioned, leaves much to be desired.
“We need to take a look at the sex offender system that we have created here in New York and we need to ask ourselves if we’re being given a false sense of security,” said Babylon Town Supervisor Steve Bellone at an Oct. 21 news conference on the steps of town hall. He called on New York State to conduct statewide analysis of residency restriction laws.
Bellone was concerned that Suffolk’s residency restrictions, which bar convicted child molesters, rapists and other sex offenders from living near schools and playgrounds, would drive offenders “underground” because of the difficulty in finding housing. He also took issue with the notification system—school districts vary in their methods—and the accuracy of information on the state sex offender registry, which town investigators found was flawed in some cases.
Like in the North Bellmore case, it turned out that vigilance fueled a scathing reaction to the complex and sometimes inconsistent system intended to protect the public. Still, the system is not without its defenders.
“It is not residency restriction that motivates a sex offender to violate the law, it is their perception that law enforcement is not dedicated to ensuring compliance,” says Laura Ahearn, executive director of Stony Brook-based Parents For Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center, a group that advocates for sex crime victims and other victims of violent crime and lobbies for tougher laws governing sex offenders. Although the burden is on the sex offender to tell authorities where they live, Suffolk has a compliance rate of between 95 and 98 percent and Nassau is comparable, Ahearn says.
She adds that sex offenders are mistaken if they think police are slacking, since Nassau and Suffolk counties have some of the strictest laws in New York State. Some towns and villages have their own additional residency restrictions as well, and still more are currently up for debate.
As for more immediate notifications, Ahearn suggests that the public sign up for e-mail alerts through her website, www.parentsformeganslaw.com, where users can register to be notified if a sex offender moves into their neighborhood by entering their zip code. Users can enter multiple zip codes as well, so they can be notified about sex offenders who move into nearby neighboring school districts that they otherwise wouldn’t be alerted to, Ahearn says.
Such diligence pays, because with the nearly 1,500 registered sex offenders on Long Island—Nassau has 484 and Suffolk has 987, as of Nov. 13—there are equally as many special circumstances. Despite what the state registry says on a given day, moves may be in progress and addresses therefore inaccurate, a warrant may already be out for the offender’s arrest, or an offender may be grandfathered into homes near schools, meaning they can stay because they lived there before residency restriction laws were enacted.
As for Kevin Johnson, the convicted child molester who was found to be living too close to Grand Avenue Middle School in North Bellmore, he has until mid-December to move out—60 days from the date of notice of eviction, same as anyone else.
Whether the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services will take Babylon’s recommendations is unclear, but spokesman John Caher says the agency is also concerned with the “inconsistency” of the residency restrictions.
Inevitably, once Johnson moves, he will infuriate his next set of neighbors. Says Caher: “They have to live somewhere.”
Tags: Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, Kevin Johnson, Laura Ahearn, New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, North Bellmore, Parents For Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center, sex offender, Special Victims Section, Steve Bellone, Town of Babylon
I remember living behind a church were Brian Lamb, and a bunch of these CNN guys used too have a wood shop. At that place of residence someone thought I needed an exorcist, after playing in the mud the way very young children will sometimes with my uncle who mixed a glass of this red clay in water and told me it was chocolate milk. After doing so I broke out with ring worm all over my body and my mom told me it was writing that could not be understood so she had a priest come in from the church. I had a fever of well over a hundred and I was a bloody mess with the infection. The priest came in with outer guys and one had a camera. One priest would throw me across the room well the other snapped a picture. I would fall on furniture and the floor and they would tell me get on the bed, don’t get off the bed very loud and when I would crawl back on the bed they would pick me up and throw me over and over again well the other priest would snap another picture and this went on till one guy said we have enough picture and they left me in the blood, mud, and bedding, then my aunt came in with some save that was for ring worm. She spread the save and kidded me about dying when the rings got to my heart. After getting well I went back to the wood shop and the guys had made me a special shield and gave me my sword which were both made of wood and I had to fight one of the guys in my shorts because I did not want to remove them and the other guy was naked. I was still not up too speed and lost the battle. They then called me the bad guy and this group was supposed to be my gate keeper or something like that appointed by the priests. My Dad did not like them much also but that did not matter much because someone at the church was going to be my new dad till he said no, my mom cried allot, my dad was gone and I healed up, but I still have a case that will take these garbage bags out.
Start a scandal then pay through the nose to sell human implantable FCC devices. The radio was designed in Italy originally and the control used by the church over sex is a failed ideology. Work the system for years and advertise sex as something abhorrent or mentally deviant when sex is necessary for human survival of the species and then attach dogma to it as if the conjuring of some binding spell/blackmailer/blackjack/death or the police force will stand by and let blood for god when the bible tells us that god does not talk to use directly? The planning of long term projects like this are flawed in that time is on the side of sensibility and that voice in someones head at the head of the class giving head to the schmo that can mark her here/hear/there in drivers education class suite is quite likely your government agent build a case to be tried by good citizens tax dollars that could have Harvard’s looking like Harvard’s and not just because they do care, and everyone could get a chance for a level playing field and we wonder if that is the world we want when the we hunt ourselves. Some small children like sex all by themselves/or entertain or just look and there are time they include/exclude/toggle the interest in others in some cat and mouse/potato/cucumber/electrical gizmo for what ever reason and we need to know if that is acting out or just natural/unnatural/supernatural/the nature of the beast/sad/happy/practical or just none of our concern? Age has nothing to do with anything concerning this subject when the process of training feeds fresh souls to the slaughter on all four ramps and the prods are held by a slew of number two’s all dead and gone while the stench lingers on the wonder is who/when where/or why cus your goina die and he/she/him/her/hummer/or pistol packing person needs that much training with the birth rate refreshes us all and that give no right/wrong or differences children themselves as we all are? The deviancy is the thinking that some magic law will make the world better with no intimacy in it toward one another when pets die without care and the intimacy of a cycle that turns again and again and again when going against the right of a child’s caregiver someone that would not clean their butt even traditionally for some cultures or whatever reason beats begetting rotten flesh for aliving caz that ain’t living unless that’s the real meaning of training day and they need their sleep too/there of/also . That selling some device to ID everyone will give the power of control to the right person when we can see who thinks they are the right person orders militiamen to burn and bulldoze a church with 1,500 people inside? We have laws based on the reasoning of this kind of thinker? Sex laws are the culprit, 6-8-2010 Rochester, New York Mr. Quinn was murdered and they called it a beating death the murders, [Yes: a small mob was their inciting a man] are free but they held one person in lieu of a 15K bail the when sex offender usually get a million dollar bail and they wont call it murder? a beating death? I was chipped as a child and chipped as an adult, used by individuals and/or unidentified corporate interests/personal/corporate gain/what but I know who has connections and some answers on a need to know bases are in order and here is where it ends? With someones Phill/tell/ltail? These laws must be obliterated world wide starting at a local level and this type of ugly is far worse than any sex act, social act, can warrant punishment when masturbation or the use of condoms were prohibited and we were told not to bath with anyone anywhere ever for health reasons yet we’re told that the sea ill give up the dead and dead will give new life so all this can make since/cents? Moms see their kids fathers in the eyes of their children in some cases the intimacy of a relationship spoken of as something abhorrent by some person/company/group/religions belief done not injuring of ones child or their neighbors child if we/they/them/us/even the mindless are to ever lean to live together in any structure of society and be at peace with all things/people/tribes/nations/provinces/tongue/lands we really need that too be/become skewed in the minds of persons listening to such teaching as some universal truth when the universal truth is sex is not murder or even punishable in it’s self. Sex is not an act, It a state of being and if someone is offended by ones being then that is their problem personally and they need to learn to control themselves, not other through laws that do no good for anyone and that could ever support life on any planet at it’s purest promotes genocides when 9 out of ten new crimes are committed by someone not on the registry and we are being born to die till a tie if any a perpetual power source till the power runs out of people to hunt for fun and profit feeding into a system were a act of submission is required for forgiveness and the bj given the judge sentencing a person to life saves that person who has been brought before the court for the density of a vial/color of skin/blessed or unblessed or just living it up in in the tent in the back yard it’s the wrong hunt for all the wrong reasons and yelled busy work that makes blood for the he said she said when more often the protector unarmed the one calling for protections and the protector is the predator connected for the wrong reasons too? People are not after us, our laws have been based on an advertised hype to sell more TV’s/to sell more advertising to feed a frenzy of fraud and promote more rhetoric about something we torture and kill so we can mine and design something to hunt ourselves to channel resources too continue to roll around from language to country all the time doing the hooch’s shuffle when 4 year old’s sometime blackmale for sexual gratification? End Sex Laws Now! signed the twice chipped guy.
Laws about sex needs to washed from the books. People who use laws about sex usually are as guilty as the one who wants to make the other suffer for having sex with that includes the Judge, Jurors and the seducer/the seduced. Surely threats are made if you don’t have sex or visaversa. Get caught and call a cop? Get in bed with someone you want to case pain is the montage used and both are wrong if that is the desire to use sex as a weapon. Some say sex is only for procreation and they are dead wrong too. The law is dead and wrong. Look if you make a law it is for one thing and one thing only like a law against homosexuality in Africa to kill homosexuals. Sex is not nor has ever been something laws should be enacted for and the ones who do never in vision equality for sexes, the law is to curb any chance of equality between sexes. If the laws were abolished then sexes would have a chance to be equal in nature. If women really wanted equality they would can and trash these law too, Judge Judy and any other judge that thinks they are doing something good by publicly abusing someone like using their image without their approval is legally irreproachable and disgustingly encroachingly disgusting. I’m confident if someone Photo Shopped JJ in bed with a child she would be upset. What is the difference when the justice system lies in a plea bargain? I find that worse by far. I wrote right on the plea bargan that I do not agree so your imaginary action and the law useing it was and still is as dead as your argument, and your sex offender list.
Just like the seventy’s when the seat belt law came out so did the over the shoulder strap and the flag was raised to create probable cause and the car could be pulled over, the citizens inside could be quizzed and revenue created. It did not save lives at all. Check the numbers. The number of cars in relation to cars on the road as related to the number of traffic deaths are not what they say and the overall long term advantage is not in the interest of the change in law bandaid but the effect of the revenue is proof to my statement. Drivers are not all the same and you don’t find seat belts in limos. The rich have sex scandals and the poor get raped is an equivalent were the money is funneled. Well here we go again! You can not prove the sex offender registry has keep one child safe yet we can prove the sex offender registry is in direct relationship to the death of innocent people, putting us to mind of scenes from Casablanca
People who are so obsessed with any sex they can find/unearth & the only way to deal with this kind of “hierarchy” of historic hysteria. A word taken from hysterectomy, hysteria is tied to castration used to make animals less threatening which clearly explains the atmosphere we have made for ourselves.
Anyway we are supposed to be an advanced nation and we still have a death penalty when the rest of the world except for some nations we are still warring with/selling weapons too. Our weapons dealers/torture lovers delighting in support for the death of people they don’t know or want to simply because they don’t know how to get money for telling them how to live or taking it from someone by force. Is that supposed to include mutilations? In my humble opinion that alone is a terrorist activity as much as severed hands, ears, heads, or making a case with nothing more than an obsession justified by a self inflicted wound?
People the worthlessness of the use of it and Pink Triangles has been proved so many times. The concepts are the same and in tell we get a handle on the business of Washington we better think. Getting a ticket for fishing just adds to ones starving more.
First off, Carol is a Dangerous human being. She obviously has lost touch (if she ever had) with reality. How can she/anyone put an individual who raped a child or woman in the same group as a 19-year-old who had sex with his 17 year-old girlfriend or an individual who looked at and passed on email of minors in sexual situations? These are three very different cases, situations and persons. Although some of these men are animals and (argubaly) “sub-human” NOT all of them are-not even close. As for the “slap on the wrist,” I’ve always been of the belief that no jail time-only probation is what Americans consider a “slap on the wrost.” Since when (for example) is five years in prison and two of probation for forwarding email (not taking the photos, not selling or buying them, havin nothing to do with thier existance) a “slap on the wrist?” Unless an individual was convicted of actual physical crimes and or is listed as a “preditor” or “extreemly dangerous” he/she is most likely a fool that did something stupid on the internet. They are often neighbors who lead otherwise good productive lives.
After all involved with their arrest, conviction, prison time, probation etc, they are so humiliated and destroyed-the last thing on their minds are breaking ANY laws. Believe me, these aren’t the men you need be concerned about-its the ones you don’t know about (along with the high profile ones) that are dangerous. The other fools, simply want to leave their past behind them, be left alone and live productive/happy lives.
Trust me, I’m the guy that spent five years in federal prison for forwarding email.
Rob,
Please seek trusted counsel.
“Rob says:
November 20, 2009 at 9:34 amJon (a.k.a. “Johnny,” “Fausto,” etc.),
Not only are you a sterile schizophrenic who lives in his mother’s basement, but also you suffer from dissociative identity disorder (i.e., a creation of multiple personalities). On November 19, I already identified this here:
http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/11/14/coram-man-dead-after-struggle-with-cops/#comment-7629
I hope that you and your psychiatrist can arrive at the root cause of your emotional abuse (e.g., Chopra, Oprah, or Hare Krishna). This statement goes to all of your identities: SEEK IMMEDIATE PROFESSIONAL HELP NOW!”
Jon (a.k.a. “Johnny,” “Fausto,” etc.),
Not only are you a sterile schizophrenic who lives in his mother’s basement, but also you suffer from dissociative identity disorder (i.e., a creation of multiple personalities). On November 19, I already identified this here:
http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/11/14/coram-man-dead-after-struggle-with-cops/#comment-7629
I hope that you and your psychiatrist can arrive at the root cause of your emotional abuse (e.g., Chopra, Oprah, or Hare Krishna). This statement goes to all of your identities: SEEK IMMEDIATE PROFESSIONAL HELP NOW!
Rob,
You continue to display significant anger issues. I urge you to seek out a trusted counselor who will help you to heal yourself.
“Rob says:
November 19, 2009 at 4:40 pmCarol,
The state should require chemical castration for those animals convicted of child rape.”
These are stupid laws, stupidly applied.
The affect of these laws is to concentrate more problems into communities which can ill afford to absorb such trouble.
Bottom line, the primary objective of such laws are to push offenders from “good well-to-do” neighborhoods and into places where people can’t afford fancy lawyers.
Unless you’re in a fortunate community, how can you possibly support such ignorance?
I agree that alot of the sexual offenders get a slap on the wrist which is messed up. Putting them all in the same class I think would be wrong. That would mean the person that was lied to about the other persons age and had sex with the person and then gets arrest for statutory rape even though the person had a fake id and was drinking in a bar would be listed with the same sicko’s that rape children and women. I come from a police family And don’t think it doesn’t happen because it does and that is why there are the different levels. And so far as chemical castration I’m sorry to say in alot of ways it wouldn’t help because alot of sexual attacts have to do with control and violence rather if the attacker using there own body parts or another object. I truly agree that there are to many sexual affenders living where they should not be. And it is very scary that near where I live there are over 100 with in less then a 1/4 mile of a school and they should keep better track of them
Carol:
You are quite simply an uninformed moron. I pray to God that our country’s next sex offenders are your children or grandchildren. That will be such sweet karma.
Carol,
The state should require chemical castration for those animals convicted of child rape.
What vile hatred and uglyness you spew Carol. I bet you belong to a bunch of radical groups who act like vigilanties and hurt innocent people while you are chasing the bad guys. Every sex offender is very different. I won’t try to convice you because you are an extreemist just like those who wage jehad against others. If you ever had to live a life like a sex offender you would not call it a slap on the wrist.
Okay, people are shocked that these sub-humans are living where they shouldn’t be? Where exactly do people think these animals go once they finish serving their sentence? Is it thought that they move to some far off land where only pedophiles go to live out their lives? Or nobody gives it a thought because, well, he/she isn’t living in my neighborhood. It is the judicial system that is failing the victims of these preditors, no more level 1, 2 or 3 sex offender status, eliminate that crap, that’s just splitting hairs. These things cannot be rehabilitated and sexual assault is sexual assault. But no, we give them a slap on the wrist, a level 1, 2 or 3 status, release them into society and then tell them that they are not allowed to live near kids or schools. Boy, I feel safe. Bottom line, there is no justice for the victims and there will be no justice for future victims until some people realize pedophilic animals are not entitled to constitutional rights, and it is the children that need to be protected. Maybe we should tag them like we do wildlife so we can keep track of them easily. Oh, but that may be inhuman. Wouldn’t want to hurt a pedophiles feelings.