Showing posts with label .Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label .Florida. Show all posts
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Saturday, June 30, 2012
FL - Police captain (Juan de los Rios) accused of making girl, 15, take off clothes for sex check
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| Juan de los Rios |
And what do you know, it's from Florida!
06/29/2012
By Louis Casiano
A Florida police captain was arrested Friday after authorities said he made a 15-year-old girl remove her clothes to prove she wasn't having sex in the back seat of a car, NBCMiami.com reported.
Juan de los Rios, 46, is charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under the age of 16 by someone over the of age 18. The charge is a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, the station reported.
The Sun Sentinel reports that de los Rios is an 18-year veteran of the Miramar Police Department. The paper reported that he's been suspended without pay.
According to the arrest affidavit, de los Rios found the girl talking with a 19-year-old boy in the back seat of the car on Jan. 18.
The station reported he asked her if they had been having sex. She told investigators she and the boy were just talking.
Authorities told NBCMiami.com that de los Rios then told the girl to remove her pants and underwear so he could see if she was telling the truth. The girl told investigators de los Rios "inspected" her with a flashlight and told her to pull down her blouse so he could check for bruising.
The girl's older sister persuaded her to tell their parents, who then reported the incident to Miramar police, the station reported.
It's not clear if de los Rios knew the girl prior to the incident.
He was being held in lieu of $30,000 bail, the Sentinel reported.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
FL - Palm Beach County task force hopes to ease limits on housing sex offenders
06/26/2012
By Alexia Campbell
They live in cars or sleep on the streets. Most homeless shelters and halfway houses won't take them.
South Florida cities have pushed hundreds of sex offenders underground with strict housing laws in recent years, critics say, but a new Palm Beach County task force is taking steps to reverse that trend.
It plans to draft an ordinance this summer that would make it easier for sex offenders in the county to find a place to live. One idea: Reduce the distance the county now requires offenders to live from schools, parks, day care centers and school bus stops from 2,500 feet to 1,000 feet.
- I'm sure this will tick off Ron Book, who is head of the Homeless Trust in Miami-Dade. He's been pushing for these laws that force people into homelessness for years. Why? Maybe job security?
If county commissioners choose to pass such an ordinance, it would be the boldest change to sex offender laws in South Florida since local cities began passing stricter laws around 2005.
"I feel that it's the right thing to do," said Highland Beach Mayor Bernard Featherman, a member of the Criminal Justice Commission's sex offender reentry task force. "I've learned that nothing you make a decision about is popular."
Two county commissioners, Steven Abrams and Priscilla Taylor, said they would consider easing limits.
"I'm willing to take a look at it and weigh the pros and cons," Taylor said. "We want to make sure every individual has a place to stay. We just need to be very cautious because it affects children and adults as well."
Commissioner Paulette Burdick said she would not support the change, citing "reservations" about shrinking the buffer zone to 1,000 feet.
"It's not far enough," Burdick said. "I know it's a difficult issue, but the safety and security of our children is paramount."
- Not far enough? So what is far enough? You could make it 50 miles and it still would not prevent crime, protect anybody and continue to force ex-offenders into homelessness and underground.
State law requires people convicted of certain sex crimes to live at least 1,000 feet from places where children congregate and prohibits them from loitering within 300 feet of those areas.
Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties and many local municipalities enacted even more stringent residency laws after Jessica Lunsford, 9, was raped and murdered in 2005 by John Couey, a repeat sex offender who lived in her Central Florida neighborhood.
Palm Beach and Broward counties require their 2,178 registered sex offenders to live at least 2,500 feet away from schools and child zones. About 200 are listed as "transient," with no address.
That transient population is growing, making them harder to track, said Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Mark Jolly, who oversees the Sexual Predator/Offender Tracking Unit. Cities have also added to the confusion by passing their own offender laws, he said.
"We need consistency," said Jolly, whose team keeps tabs on where sex offenders live. "If an offender calls me and wants to know where they can live, it's nearly impossible to tell them. [Laws] change from one street to the other."
In Broward County, offenders clustered in Broadview Park until the county passed its current ordinance that created a 2,500-foot buffer around schools, parks and playgrounds. Residents of the unincorporated area had complained about large numbers of sex offenders moving to their neighborhood because of the residency restrictions in surrounding cities.
Palm Beach County's sex offender task force, made up of community officials and social service agencies, wants to return to a law more similar to the state's. The ordinance would only cover neighborhoods outside city limits, so the task force needs to drum up support from local municipalities to adopt a standard law.
"Obviously, the politics of this issue are serious. It's a scary population for a lot of people," said Mike Rodriguez, executive director of the Criminal Justice Commission. "I wouldn't be surprised if all of this were to go nowhere."
Sunday, May 27, 2012
FL - Hired and Fired
By D (03/15/2012):
I was just released from probation this past Dec. I spent a year in jail and 4 years probation (with the ankle monitor). I solicited an under age girl (a cop). At least that's what they said. I was initially contacted by the cop. I was lead into believing the person was under age and wanted to talk about sex, so that's what I did.
In my previous life I was a computer programmer. Since my conviction I was not permitted to even touch a computer. Even though the Florida workforce uses computers to search for work. So for the past 51/2 years I have been unemployed. I am 64 years old. Once I was off probation I was once again allowed to pursue my profession. I went on a job interview three weeks ago. I filled out the standard employment application. I filled in where the "Have you ever been convicted...." was located. The company, which has only 20 people, was in the exact same field that my last job trained me in. Financial Banking software. I was hired at a good salary. Yesterday was my first day. I was told that I would have to fill out the appropriate paper work. Of course the W-2 form, the non compete form, etc. However, the first form I had to fill out was the one where I gave permission to check my background. I spoke with the manager and told him that I thought he had already checked my background. He told me he did not. At that point I had to explain my situation. I told him about my arrest for Solicitation. I did not mention it was with a cop pretending to be an under age girl. After explaining my situation, I asked him what I should do. He said that since my crime had nothing to do with violence or stealing, he didn't think it would cause a problem with my job. He said I should proceed with my training, and he would talk to the owner of the company what he thought. Well, by 5:45PM my day was over. I asked if he spoke with the owner but he said the owner hadn't run the background check as of yet, so I should come in today to continue training. Before I got home last night, I received a call from the manager. He said the owner ran the check and couldn't employee me.
My wife says to forget looking any more because of the pain and disappointment. I don't know whether I should stop looking or not. My feeling is that no matter where I look for work, the company will find out. What they will do with that information is anyone's guess but if a small company of 20 won't hire me, what chances do you think I have?
Any ideas are welcome....
Thank you for this forum.
Monday, May 21, 2012
FL - David Raymond, Homeless Trust Director, Retires Amidst Bid-Rigging Lawsuit
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| Ron Book |
05/21/2012
By Francisco Alvarado
The longtime executive director of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust is set to retire, ending his term atop the agency amidst an ongoing lawsuit accusing him of bid-rigging.
David Raymond, who has led the homeless group for a decade, improperly helped steer a $15 million contract to build a 300-bed homeless shelter in Homestead -- or least that's what another company that lost out on the bid claims in court. The claim is just the latest turbulence for the trust, which has also been criticized for its role in the homeless sex offender colony under the Julia Tuttle Causeway.
- Read more here and see videos here.
Back in 2009, a company named Jaxi Builders won a contract to build the Verde Gardens Complex, a Homestead shelter on the site of a former air force base. But another firm, Siltek Group Inc., says it actually submitted a better bid.
Oscar Soto, an attorney representing Siltek, says Raymond pressured officials from Carrfour Supportive Housing -- the non-profit agency in charge of the project - to ignore Siltek's offer, even though it was $2.6 million lower than Jaxi's bid. The trust controlled the project's budget, which consisted of county and federal public housing funds, which gave Raymond heft over who was chosen.
"Raymond was directing Carrfour on what to do," Soto claims. "He interfered with the bidding process. The end result is that the lowest bidder didn't get the job and it cost taxpayers a lot of money."
Officials for Carrfour declined to comment. Raymond could not be reached for comment on Friday, but Homeless Trust Board Chairman Ronald Book said Soto's accusations are absurd.
- Mr. Book has, in the past, been under investigation by the FBI, see here.
"Raymond's integrity is unquestioned," says Book, who in his day job is Dade County's most prominent lobbyist. "He is tireless in his work and guides our day-to-day operation with a level of commitment unknown in governmental circles."
Raymond leaves after a tumultuous tenure. This past March, the trust came under fire for allegedly failing to keep tabs on at least six homeless sex offenders that turned up in the Shorecrest neighborhood of Miami.
The men were part of the encampment that lived under the Julia Tuttle bridge until nonstop media coverage and complaints from elected officials forced the trust to find the men inexpensive housing throughout the county in 2010.
There's no timetable yet on hiring a new head for the trust.
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