When The Courts Don’t Do Their Jobs

On Friday, NewsMax reported that the young man who sexually assaulted a teenage girl in the ladies room in Loudoun County, Virginia, and later sexually assaulted another student will not have to register as a sex offender.

The article reports:

The parents of a Loudoun County school sexual assault victim worked to keep the teen attacker out of jail — instead opting for official sex offender status and treatment, but a Virginia judge Thursday ruled the juvenile offender will no longer have to register as a sex offender due to a ruling technicality.

The teenager will be held in a “residential program” at a psychiatric facility, however.

“The decision is horrific,” Scott Smith, father to one of two victims, told WJLA. “I mean what is not disclosed in his sexual evaluation and his physical evaluation that scared the judge to the point that she ordered him on the sexual registry the first time. That should be enough the first time that it scared a judge enough to order that.”

Smith had told Newsmax‘s “Eric Bolling: The Balance” this month he believed jail time would be too brief and not correct his daughter’s attacker’s future behavior, instead urging prosecutors to issue a sentence for a residential sexual rehabilitation program as long as he would have to register as a sex offender.

But Loudoun County Judge Pamela Brooks granted the defense’s request to drop the sex offender portion of his sentence during a hearing Thursday, saying she made a mistake by accepting an oral and not written motion, according to WJLA.

There is some good news in this story:

New Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has vowed to investigate the case.

A teenage boy who has committed two sexual assaults needs to be registered as a sex offender.

Why Didn’t The New York City Police Department Follow The Law?

Yesterday The New York Post reported that Jeffrey Epstein, after being labeled a Level 3 sex offender in 2011, never once checked in with city cops in the eight-plus years since a Manhattan judge ordered him to do so every 90 days — and the NYPD says it’s fine with that. What?

The article reports:

After being labeled a worst-of-the-worst, Level 3 sex offender in 2011, Epstein should have reported in person to verify his address 34 times before he was arrested Saturday on federal child sex-trafficking charges.

Violating requirements of the state’s 1996 Sex Offender Registration Act — including checking in with law enforcement — is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison for a first offense.

Subsequent violations carry a sentence of up to seven years each.

But the NYPD hasn’t required the billionaire financier — who owns a $77 million Upper East Side townhouse — to check in since he registered as a sex offender in New York over the controversial 2008 plea bargain he struck in Florida amid allegations he sexually abused scores of underage girls in his Palm Beach mansion.

Michael Bloomberg was the Mayor of New York in 2011. In 2014, Bill de Blasio became Mayor. Did they make this decision or did the police chief make this decision?

The article continues:

That was the same hearing where, in a highly controversial move, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office tried to argue on Epstein’s behalf that he should be deemed a low-risk Level 1 offender, which would have exempted him from the reporting requirements.

The DA’s office has said that the prosecutor in that case — Jennifer Gaffney, who quit last year — “made a mistake” and that DA Cyrus Vance Jr. was unaware of it at the time.

In March, an NYPD spokeswoman told the Washington Post that Epstein never checked in following Pickholz’s ruling. Asked repeatedly about that admission this week, the NYPD declined comment.

Asked about her ruling, state court spokesman Lucian Chalfen said Pickholz “stands by what was said in court, on the record, at the hearing and has had no further role in any type of enforcement. That’s not the court’s role.”

In addition to verifying a sex offender’s address, the 90-day check-ins allow cops to take a new photograph if the offender’s appearance has changed, so it can be updated online.

The NYPD cop assigned to monitor Epstein has repeatedly complained to Vance’s Sex Crimes Unit that Epstein wasn’t in compliance, according to a source familiar with the matter.

But prosecutors told the cop to merely send Epstein a letter reminding him of his reporting requirement.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is fascinating. One wonders how much money changed hands and to whose hands it went to keep this man from having the meet his legal responsibilities in New York City.

Who Gets Hurt In Our Hook-Up Society?

I realize that things have changed since the age of dinosaurs when I was dating. I don’t know how anyone survives the current dating scene unscathed. I assume there are people out there with some sort of moral values, but they don’t seem to be the ones getting the publicity. Even nice kids can make mistakes, though, and sometimes the cost of those mistakes is way out of proportion to the mistake.

RTV6 posted a story about a 19-year old boy from Indiana who is now a registered sex offender because a girl he hooked up with lied about her age. She told him she was 17 when she was 14. I am not condoning the behavior of either teenager, but I am wondering why he is the one who has to pay a very high price.

The story reports:

According to court documents, the girl’s mother told the judge, “I don’t want him to be a sex offender because he really is not.” Her daughter added, “I feel nothing should happen to Zach.”

But the judge condemned what he called a culture of “meet, hook-up, have sex, sayonara, totally inappropriate behavior,” according to court documents.

Zach was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to register as a sex offender.

“The hardest part probably for me was to see him being led away, because he turned and looked at us, and it’s like, we want to give him a hug, and you don’t even have that opportunity,” said his father, Les Anderson.

Zach will be listed on the sex offender registry until 2040. His parents say the label is incredibly unfair.

I have no problem with the judge condemning the behavior and the hook-up culture, but I am not sure what is accomplished by declaring this young man a sex offender.

We Need To Do A Better Job Of Protecting Our Children

Fox News in Boston reported that 119 registered sex offenders in Massachusetts have the same addresses as child care providers.

The article reports:

State Auditor Suzanne Bump is asking a state agency to regularly cross-reference the addresses of registered sex offenders and child care providers following disturbing new information revealed in an audit.

The recommendation was made to the Department of Early Education and Care on Wednesday after an audit revealed 119 instances where the address listed for a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender was the same as an EEC-licensed child care provider.

Bump’s office also says that in four of the 119 cases, the EEC revoked the provider’s license because its operators had prior knowledge of the registered sex offender status, but did not report it to the department.

The current law requires Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) checks, but not Sex Offender Registry Information (SORI) checks on child-care providers or people living at the same address as at home child-care facilities.

Daycare is a necessity for most families today. We need to make sure that the children of families who use daycare facilities can be sure that their children are safe. Better background checks and checks against the SORI would be a good step in that direction.