21 charged under sex offender registration law

[concerned]

UTICA — More than 20 people have been arrested since April 2008 under the state Sex Offender Registration Act, according to the city police department's Sex Offender Unit.

Failing to register as a sex offender carries a felony charge - the severity of which depends on whether the person had a prior conviction.

The following arrests were made by the Utica Police Warrants Unit and the U.S. Marshals Service. The age listed shows the person's age at the time of arrest.

Brian Roman, 30; Charles Fisher, 51; Charles McCorkle, 30; Edin Krupic, 44; Eric Dawkins, 36; Gerardo Figueroa, 41 (charged twice); Hector Cancel, 33; Henry Jones, 49; Jason Ricca, 26.

John Constantine, 48; Joseph Barr, 38; Kenneth Warner, 20; Kisle Vines, 20; Michael Sarasy, 34; Paul Cooke, 23; Samuel Agosto, 46; Shaun Lawson, 24; Thomas Lange, 41; Timothy Bembry, 31; Timothy Fitzsimmons, 43; Willie Bennett, 71.

[dgriffin]

Doesn't sound like the authorities have a handle on the problem. I wonder if it's the old problem of where the offenders will live?

If anyone molested my children, I would flat out kill the f**ker, no questions, no hesitation. You might call it murder, I call it natural selection.

That said, I do have to wonder about how these perps find housing, jobs, etc. I'm wondering if the problem is an inability to support themselves ... given their record ... and therefore they wind up living with relatives in neighborhoods prohibited to them.
I notice the last guy on the list is past 71 years old.

Anyone out there who's worked in the field and is familiar with this problem?

[concerned]

I have one of them who lives in the apartment building across the street. I found about him while internet surfing at that website about criminals in your neighborhood. The last name was familar to me due to his wife and two of his daughters living in another building. So last summer I saw him outside and asked him if he was( I don't want to say the name) and he said yes. After I pieced together a few things I learned it was him. He is 87 and his second daughter( who is nuts) gave birth to his third daughter( incest). He served time for a while.

[bobbbiez]

Dave, I think just the opposite.

They got them for not registering their new addresses so I would say someone is definitely keeping track of them.

There are plenty of websites that are open to the public if one wants to know where the nearest sex offender might be to them.

Don't know about anywhere else but in Utica the offenders can not live near or be around any schools, playgrounds, day care centers or anywhere else children might frequent. If they violate these rules and others they have to comply with or do not register their recent addresses they will be arrested and sent back to prison.

[Clipper]

Bobbbiez, MOST states have the laws that prohibit sex offenders from living near schools and playgrounds. Most states have provisions that forbid sex offenders from being around children also, and in most cases it is a condition of their parole. Utica is not alone or unique in that respect.

[frankcor]

Rome has a similar statute banning sex offenders from living within 1000 yards of a school, park or any other place where children frequent. That leaves only a few square feet of Rome outside those limits.

[bobbbiez]

Clipper, didn't say Utica was unique in their laws for sex offenders. Just don't know how other states handle violators of the laws the offenders are suppose to follow.

Was just making a point that our sex offender's unit in the UPD do not fool around and don't hesitate to violate the offender even if he doesn't list his new address immediately. They don't wait till the offender commits another more serious crime. They jump on them for the smallest infraction and away the sex offender goes again.

[Clipper]

Didn't mean that in any negative reference to your post. Just widening your horizons darlin.

I imagine that Utica has the same problem that any other area does. If the offender moves and doesn't re-register, they have to LOCATE him again, before they can enforce the law. Not to mention the offenders that move INTO the area, undetected. They are like cockroaches they move around, sometimes under the radar.

[bobbbiez]

:)That is the point I was making about the "21" offenders arrested here in Utica. The sex offenders unit at the UPD are doing a great job in tracking them down and getting them violated so they're off our streets.

[Clipper]

It would be interesting to see how many there actually are out there, and then we would have a benchmark to compare the numbers of those caught to those suspected to be living in the area unegistered. Then we would know how efficient the unit really is. I am sure they do all they can, but unless the number of cops assigned and the time available to devote to the mission is great, it is like swatting cockroaches with a fly swatter. More get released or move into the area every day, and more and more slip through and are undetected.

I have a sex offender living right close to me. He was convicted of having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend when he was 17 or so. He is in his late forties now, but still has to register, and if I go online, his picture and address show up on the website as a convicted sex offender.

[dgriffin]

Feb 6, 2009 20:11:45 GMT -5 bobbbiez said:

That is the point I was making about the "21" offenders arrested here in Utica. The sex offenders unit at the UPD are doing a great job in tracking them down and getting them violated so they're off our streets.

Bobbbiez, you're right. I somehow got the impression that it was a simultaneous roundup of offenders, but in re-reading the article I see that the 21 were arrested over the period of almost a year. It does appear the UPD is doing their job. Unless, as Clipper points out, there are a lot of uncaught offenders. But we don't know that at this point.

[dgriffin]

Feb 6, 2009 23:31:30 GMT -5 Clipper said:

It would be interesting to see how many there actually are out there, and then we would have a benchmark to compare the numbers of those caught to those suspected to be living in the area unegistered. Then we would know how efficient the unit really is. I am sure they do all they can, but unless the number of cops assigned and the time available to devote to the mission is great, it is like swatting cockroaches with a fly swatter. More get released or move into the area every day, and more and more slip through and are undetected.
I have a sex offender living right close to me. He was convicted of having sex with his 15 year old girlfriend when he was 17 or so. He is in his late forties now, but still has to register, and if I go online, his picture and address show up on the website as a convicted sex offender.

That's very much like the classic case we read about soon after these laws were passed. Maybe it is THE case. Two teens making in the back seat of his family car. She is technically underage, her Dad gets mad and turns in the young guy, who spends the rest of his life under the black cloud as a "molester." And, oh by the way, he married her. They have a lovely family and have been happy for 25 years. His PO takes them to dinner on their anniversary. Or something like that.

[Clipper]

It may not have been the case you noted, but very similar. His wife told Kathy that he was arrested after the father found out that they were sexually active. He ended up with 5 years of supervised probation, and a restraining order against him, and to this day suffers the stigma of being a convicted offender for simply getting a piece of tail from his high school girl friend.

Another sad point is that they had been going together for over a year, so he had been having sex with her while BOTH of them were underage.

I would think there would be a statute of limitations as to how far back they go while digging up cases to place on the registry, and that the circumstances would be taken into consideration in cases like this. The registry didn't exist when he committed his "offense" and he was simply put on the registry when they went back many years and pulled records while compiling it.

[lucy]

Dave I remember hearing about a similar case it could be the same case but the father years later wanted to take back what he had done, and he can't. They tried going through the courts and everything to have the conviction overturned and the courts won't allow it. There has got to be something that the courts can do for teenagers like in that case.

[dgriffin]

What exactly is the age limit in NY State?

Hmmm. Could Mrs. Dave have some ammo?

Probably not, we weren't teenagers when we met.

But I never asked her for ID, so ........