Get info and help

The following was sent to us via the contact form and posted with the users permission.

By M:
Hi Dear,

In the below website there is information of someone who where living with me about two years ago. Now he moved out of because of all hard times he had (just need to mention he was wrongly accused and labeled as sex offender according to a stupid chat for a TV show). I recently searched his name in Google, and find this website which has his information with his old address (my address). He is not living here anymore and I don’t like my address to be published. I am alone female and scare of all unexpected harassment that may accrue because of my address is published. I wanted to request to remove the information from the web site, but the web site requesting money!!!! The interesting part is that in the website they are advertising: there is a limited time for the people who are in their website to be removed without asking any questions of them (by paying money to them of curse). I would like to ask you some help and advice regarding this matter, please. Do you familiar with this website, and their activity? I am wondering how they can make this nasty business? Is this legal as they claim in their website or illegal? Is there anything that I can do regarding this? I will be really appreciated your advice in advance.

Thank You,

The website is: http://www.offendex.com

See Also:

• Why is OFFENDEX getting away with extortion?

IL - Illinois’ sex-offender fee generates little money

Original Article

Charging someone a fee for a service they do not want, or face prison time, is basically extortion!

06/22/2012

By DAVID MERCER

CHAMPAIGN — When the Illinois Sheriffs Association pushed two years ago to raise by tenfold the annual fee law enforcement agencies charge registered sex offenders, Executive Director Greg Sullivan hoped he was about to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars for a new statewide tracking system.

That hasn’t happened.

The General Assembly and Gov. Pat Quinn in 2010 changed state law to allow towns and counties to charge a $100 annual fee, but only a relative handful of local agencies have taken advantage.

Most agencies, Sullivan said Friday, have had enough trouble collecting the old $20 annual fee, much less 10 times that amount.

“If they’re not collecting the fee now, why raise it?’’ he asked.

The tracking system, Offender Watch, now lacks the $450,000 a year Sullivan had hoped to raise to pay for it. The system now lacks most of the money that was intended to run it — last year, the annual fees raised only $13,000 — and Sullivan fears he may have to shut the new system down.
- Good, we do not need an online shaming hit-list in the first place, but, this shows that police and others will use FEAR to attempt to motivate people to send in their cash!

Illinois has almost 15,300 registered sex offenders, according to Tracey Newton of the Illinois State Police. About 4,400 of them are in Cook County.

The higher fee, under the new law, is divided between the local agency and the state, including $30 of every $100 collected for the new tracking system. The system, according to Sullivan and the AG’s office, is far more sophisticated than other state law enforcement data systems.

But even the old standard Illinois fee of $10 — low compared with many states — has been seldom collected. Local agencies opt instead to allow offenders to register — and get them into the system — rather than turning away those who claimed they couldn’t pay, according to Cara Smith, deputy chief of staff for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan.

“We just found a lot of agencies that weren’t collecting across the board,’’ she said. “And they want to know where these guys are.’’

Streator in central Illinois became the latest town to enact the higher annual fee when the City Council agreed this week.

“If it’s there, we might as well take advantage of it because we have the administrative expense of (keeping the registry) anyhow,’’ Streator Mayor Jimmie Lansford said.

But he acknowledged many of the 50 registered sex offenders in the town of 14,000 may not be able to pay, or may just decide not to. And the law, he acknowledged, has no real punitive teeth for those who don’t pay.

“We may get some money, we may not get any,’’ Lansford said.

If Mt. Vernon in southern Illinois is any indicator, the result will likely be some, but not much.

The small town raised its annual fee at the beginning of the year and has so far collected $1,300 from its 56 registered sex offenders, police Chief Chris Mendenall said. Under the law, just under $400 of that belongs to the city, a tiny sliver of the police department’s annual $5 million budget.

“Compliance isn’t real high,’’ Mendenall said.

While a lot registered sex offenders across the state never paid the $10 fee when it was the maximum, a $100 fee would be genuinely out of reach for many, according to Amy Campanelli. She oversees the Cook County Public Defender’s Office suburban operations and sits on the state’s Sex Offender Management Board. Convicted sex offenders’ job prospects are usually dim, she said.

“For our clients, who are indigent, that’s a lot of money,’’ she said.

Sullivan is skeptical of many sex offenders’ claims of indigence.
- Maybe they don't want to pay your extortion fee?

But the sheriffs association is now backing a new bill, sponsored by state Rep. Norine Hammond, R-Macomb, that would allow local agencies to set up payment plans for those who need them. For offenders who sign an affidavit saying they can’t afford to pay, payment through community service would be an option.

IN - Vigilante Registry - Extortion

The following was sent to us via the contact form and posted with the users permission.

By M:
I am a resident of Indiana. I was convicted of an offense in 1993. In 2001 I was forced to register. In 2011 I completed the full ten year registration that the law required of me, despite an Indiana Supreme court ex post facto ruling in 2009 in my favor (which I was not aware until after my registration requirement had expired). As of recently, my information has been removed from the state registry portal. This is the "good" news.

With that being said, I thought that my life would get a little better. Who wouldn't! I had survived the registry... or did I?

To my horror, after ten years of public humiliation and scorn, what do I find just months after I had been removed from the official law enforcement web portal? When performing a Google search on my name and town, the NUMBER ONE result is a site listing me as an offender! This website had never been there before. It did not appear until AFTER my registration requirement had ENDED!

About the vigilante website: It is called [offendex.com]. It is registered by proxy via Internet Solutions. It is on Amazon servers. The offender information is copied from the state websites. It copied the entire registry, perhaps for all states. The info is not hidden in a database. It is OPTIMIZED for SEO.

The website went live months after I had been removed from the state registry, circa 02/2012. At first it was littered with law enforcement badge/links. It had other links for 'pay to be removed', similar to a mugshot-racket schemes. They demanded a HUNDRED dollars just to REQUEST removal! And with no guarantee of being removed, either!

Now the site has been redesigned without the law badge/links (at least on the page with my info), and it does not 'explicitly' demand money. However there is still a PayPal link there for paying to get the pages removed. (The blackmail remains! The extortion continues!) Furthermore, the site claims that it has no obligation to remove the pages even if you pay them. And they footnote that they have the 'right' to 'republish' the information under state and federal FOIA claims. (The meta description in my Google search result also claims FOIA privilege.)

All of this is very disturbing. After years of chronic unemployment due the state registry, now I am prima facie as bad as before in regards to employment opportunity. This site is acting as a criminal history provider, using SEO to keep me anchored at the top of Google. How am I suppose to put out resumes and applications? An employer is more likely to look someone up on Google than to perform a background check!

And I am not alone. This site is acting under the color of a "legitimate" registry for ALL states in the USA! This means it could happen to anyone else, and is happening! How much data they have stolen from the 'real' state registries under the color of the FOIA, I am not sure.

What I do know is that this should be illegal! No private citizen or company should be allowed to use this information for personal financial gain or harassment of ex-offenders. This is another example of why only law enforcement should be privy to any of this information. There needs to be laws stopping this practice! It seems questionable to me how the FOIA even applies to it. The site needs shut down!

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Law Note:

Indiana has passed a new law concerning criminal history providers. It is HB 1033 -- Criminal history and sentencing. It has been enacted into law, but it does not go into effect until July, 2013.

It has penalties for criminal history providers who do not update their info. It also makes such behavior actionable. It specifically mentions the sex offender registry, so perhaps this is a start....

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I am a regular reader of your blog. It is an amazing wealth of information. I admire your courage and dedication. I send this message to you for awareness. Thank you for all your efforts to inform people of the injustice going on in our country! You deserve a medal of courage and admiration!