Sex offenders register, then relocate
Published on 2 Aug 2006 at 8:07 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under Local.
Star-Ledger Staff
When Angel Mendez was released from prison in 2002 after serving six years for sexually assaulting a child in Essex County, he registered under Megan’s Law so police could inform the community that a sex offender was living in its midst.
Sometime after that he moved — and didn’t tell authorities. Nobody knew where he was until he was nabbed by State Police in Brooklyn seven months ago.
State Police say Mendez is part of a growing and disturbing trend in which sex offenders evade Megan’s Law community notification systems by simply moving and not reporting their new address.
Law enforcement authorities say they don’t know the whereabouts of about 300 New Jersey registered sex offenders. They say many are fleeing to other states, but at the same time, an unknown number from other states may have settled in New Jersey.
To combat this problem, the State Police has assigned members of its fugitive unit to find unregistered offenders and arrest them. Since last December, 32 have been apprehended, including 11 who fled New Jersey, said Lt. Brian Slattery, who heads the unit.
Troopers have traveled as far as Massachusetts to find a sex offender — Claude Booker, who registered in Burlington County but then dropped off the map. In some cases the offender may be hiding in plain sight. Sex offender Jerry Bellamy was wanted by Trenton police. On July 6, he was arrested — in Trenton.
“These people don’t want to be found,” said Capt. Matthew Hartigan, chief of the State Police’s violent crimes bureau. “And what we’re finding is that more are moving out of state and nobody knows about it.”
Slattery said sex offenders “are some of the hardest guys to find … these pedophiles, their families wash their hands of them so you don’t even have an avenue where to start. They blend in so much and they’re so nondescript.”
The estimated 300 sex offenders wanted by the State Police are a small percentage of the 11,390 in New Jersey required to register with authorities at least once a year.
All convicted sex offenders must register with authorities after they are released from prison, and they must disclose when they move. In addition, all are required to register again after a period of time. Those categorized as posing the most substantial risk of molesting again must register with authorities every 90 days, and offenders deemed a lower risk must register once a year.
Only five of those wanted by the State Police are deemed by the courts as being the most dangerous. Slattery said it’s easier for the lower-risk sex offenders to skip out. “Once they register, they got a 364-day head start before we know they’re gone,” he said.
State Police say they are not sure how many sex offenders from other states have settled in New Jersey. “What we’re finding is that sex offenders from out of state are moving in and nobody knows about it,” Hartigan said.
New Jersey’s problem is part of a larger national dilemma, serious enough to attract the attention of federal authorities. U.S. Marshals arrested more than 1,100 sex offenders in a nationwide roundup in April but none of these arrests were in New Jersey, officials said.
President Bush last week signed a new law that created a national Internet database of convicted child molesters, established a federal DNA database of samples collected from convicted molesters and increased minimum sentences for offenders who travel across state lines.
New Jersey lawmakers, meanwhile, are considering a bill that would increase the maximum penalty for sex offenders who fail to register under Megan’s Law from 18 months to five years.
The state is also in the midst of a two-year pilot program that tracks New Jersey’s most dangerous sexual predators with the aid of a satellite tracking device. The program will ultimately include the more than 200 most dangerous sex offenders.
Sex offenders have had to register since 1996 with police when moving into a community under Megan’s Law, named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a Hamilton Township girl who was raped and killed in 1994 by a neighbor who was a twice-convicted sexual predator. New Jersey was the first state to adopt the law. Laws in other states, and a federal statute — all under the same name — came shortly after that.
“If you knew there was a registered sex offender in the neighborhood you wouldn’t let your 12-year-old son cut the guy’s lawn,” said Keith F. Durkin, a criminologist at Ohio Northern University. “But a lot of these folks are transient and they change addresses three or four times a year and they tend not to register. … They feel they’re stigmatized by registering. Of course, that’s their side of the story. They didn’t get put on the registry just at random.”
3 Comments to ‘Sex offenders register, then relocate’:
Leave a Reply
Common XHTML tags allowed, which will be validated. Spam and trolling will not be tolerated.
Well on 5 Aug 2006 at 7:32 pm: 1
nEo, Are you also going to defend the undocumented pedophiles? They pay taxes just like illegal aliens. They are also a burden on the system. I am sure you want them to vote as well.
nEo on 6 Aug 2006 at 3:30 pm: 2
You are equating undocumented immigrants to pedophiles, just as another famous, but much more lucrative than the local anti immigrant, Lou Dobbs equates undocumented workers with terrorist. Nice try. But since you are equating, lets do some equations.
Those who commit a vile crime should not have the sympathy of anyone. Crossing the border is not a crime. If that was the case, those who came in 1492 and those who came in the Mayflower would have been jailed and the country would never have evolved into what it is now. Just in case you don?t get it, there is symmetry here. Just as there is difference between the crime committed by pedophile and the crime committed by Rosa Parks when she, answering to a higher order, just like undocumented immigrants, stood against criminal ? majority supported, laws.
Undocumented workers are not hurting anyone; better yet, they are supporting their families, supporting our economy and creating jobs for well-educated Americans. So please, save the ill-fated comparisons for other anti immigrants like yourself. They would support you blindly, exactly what you are looking for. Because, you should know, most Americans ? even though majority should be unimportant ? support the documentation of million of hardworking Americans now considered ? in their own lands ? undocumented immigrants. Because I do not know if you have noticed, but those crossing the borders are all indigenous. In fact, some of them, at least 25%, don?t even speak Spanish. They speak the language of those who lived here before your and mine descendants came along.
Contrary to how you feel, you should know that in this country there would always be room for those who want to work and progress. I know you will never be convinced of these, but ask your children and you will see that to them, immigrants, documented or undocumented are part of his life and through them, they will be part of yours; sorry for you and Dobbs, but this transition is inevitable and vital for the future of the country.
nEo
nEoCLONE on 7 Aug 2006 at 2:26 pm: 3
They are criminals for illegally crossing the border. Basically it was a joke and not a comparison. Obviously, you have again been exposed as the wild eyed fanatic that you are. They are ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS and not ”undocumented”, just the same way that they are FUGITIVE PEDOPHILES and not ”undocumented pedophiles.” This was the point, but your liberalism disorder prevented you from seeing the forest through the trees. What a fool you are….