WI - Court: Woman (Barbara Patterson) abused process in sex offender fight

Original Article

06/20/2012

MADISON (AP) - A state appeals court says a Grafton woman abused the legal process when she filed a complaint against a sex offender's family.

Barbara Patterson put up fliers in 2009 announcing her neighbor, [name withheld], had decided to let her sex offender son move in. The [name withheld] family began receiving prank phone calls and drivers started gawking at their house.

After the family warned Patterson they planned to sue her (PDF), Patterson filed a complaint alleging family members threatened her.

The family filed a lawsuit alleging invasion of privacy, defamation and abuse of process.

A judge dismissed all three claims, but the 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Patterson did abuse the process, saying she exaggerated her threat claims.

Patterson's attorney didn't immediately return a message.

NY - Homeless Sex Offender Trailers At Center Of Controversy (Police Harassment)

Original Article

05/23/2012

By Colleen Reynolds

A dustup involving Southampton Town’s homeless sex offenders has flared over the past week, with the Suffolk County Department of Social Services accusing police officers of harassing those staying at a pair of county-owned trailers by conducting multiple predawn identity checks over the past three months.

Department of Social Services Commissioner Gregory J. Blass, in a phone interview last week, criticized Town Police for intimidating the sex offenders who take shelter in the county trailers in Westhampton and Riverside by arriving at the unreasonably early hours of 2 and 4 a.m., for example, and rousing the offenders to check their IDs.

Continued intimidation, he warned, will lead to a breach in the county’s ability to track the homeless sex offenders.

“Checking for identification at the predawn hours may be their way of monitoring where they are, but if they persist in this unwarranted excess by doing it in the predawn hours, they will discourage the homeless registered sex offenders from using these emergency shelter trailers,” Mr. Blass said. “And if they do that, we will not know where the homeless sex offenders spend the night.”

Town Police Chief William Wilson Jr. said this week that his officers are not bullying or harassing anyone, but are simply fulfilling their responsibility to verify the residency of the homeless sex offenders for public safety purposes.

Mr. Blass, whose department is responsible for providing emergency housing to all of the county’s homeless, said his department cooperates fully with the police and that the trailer security guards share with officers the logs that document which offenders are present each night and what incidents, if any, occur. He said the police have made one too many predawn ID checks, saying they have done this about six to eight times since about February.

“If the police wake them up all the time just for the sake of checking their IDs and not relying on the security guards and the logs they have prepared, which are done honestly and professionally, then the system we have starts to fall apart, and they will avoid these trailers,” Mr. Blass said.

He added that his department recently enacted a new policy because of what he views as pre-dawn raids. The new policy, Mr. Blass said, requires police to have a warrant before entering the trailers. He said one officer ignored the policy last week.

The county is required by law to provide shelter to homeless sex offenders, while the Town Police are required to verify that the homeless sex offenders are living where they say they are living. If sex offenders do not register a change of address within 10 days of a move, they can be charged with a felony. The Westhampton trailer, located near the Suffolk County Police shooting range on Old Country Road, currently houses about eight offenders, while the Riverside trailer, which sits just outside the Suffolk County Jail, houses about 18.

Town Police Detective Sergeant Lisa Costa this week defended the police department’s recent action, adding that she was surprised by Mr. Blass’s stance. She explained that the police usually refer to a list of names provided by a trailer security guard.

“That did not suffice on its face for us conducting our felony investigations,” she said, adding that if police have to press charges against the homeless sexual offenders, they must have firsthand knowledge of where they are living and officers cannot rely on the lists provided by the guards.

Two recent arrests involving convicted sex offenders led to the recent instances, Det. Sgt. Costa said.

In one case, a Level 3 sex offender—the most severe classification leveled on sex offenders, which indicates high risk of repeat offense—living in Flanders, [name withheld], 56, was arrested in Riverside on May 12 after police said he forced a woman into the woods at knife point and attempted to assault her. Mr. [name withheld] was convicted of first-degree rape in 1983, according to the State Division of Criminal Justice Services sex offender registry.

In the other case, a 52-year-old sex offender, [name withheld], was arrested on May 9 through a joint investigation of the Southampton Town Police, Suffolk County Police and the U.S. Marshals. Mr. [name withheld], a Level 2 sex offender—a classification that denotes a moderate risk of repeat offense—had registered his address as the Riverside trailer, but authorities said he was not living there. Det. Sgt. Costa said his actual place of residence was undetermined, but that he was located and arrested in Amityville. Mr. [name withheld] was convicted of second-degree rape in 2003, the registry states.

“An occasional verification of an address for the common good and safety for the surrounding community clearly outweighs an inconvenience of waking someone up,” she said. “We are not trying to bully. We are not trying to infringe upon their sleep or their rights. We are simply trying to just get the job done.”

None of the homeless sex offenders living in the trailer could be reached for comment this week.

Mr. Blass said all of the recent attention on the Southampton Town Police Department, pointing to the Suffolk County district attorney office’s ongoing investigation of department record-keeping and other internal issues, have prompted the pre-dawn identification checks at the trailers. He said police officials are simply trying to deflect attention away from them.

“It seems a stretch to call the grand jury investigation and this upsurge in these predawn raids to monitor those already being monitored a coincidence,” Mr. Blass said.

LA - Man labeled child sexual predator awarded $160,000

Original Article

05/22/2012

By Eric Heisig

A judge has awarded $160,000 to a Bayou Blue man who said he was labeled a child sexual predator via a series of emails and flyers sent out by Houma Police.

[name withheld], 51, filed suit against Terrebonne Parish and Houma Police officer Angela Domangue and said his reputation was damaged when Domangue sent out notices to local schools that he was "watching school children" and to call police if he was seen. [name withheld] was never arrested, ticketed or charged in any way, though court papers say police had received several reports about him "stretching in a provocative way."

The suit was first filed in federal court in 2008 but was re-filed in Terrebonne District Court last year. Late last month, District Judge Johnny Walker ruled in favor of [name withheld], saying he was publicly defamed by the notices and his right to privacy was violated when personal information was dispersed, court papers say.

On Monday, Walker awarded [name withheld] $140,000 worth of damages and $20,000 for his medical expenses. [name withheld] had sought treatment for the anguish caused by the situation, court papers say.

Barron Whipple, [name withheld]'s attorney, did not immediately return a message for comment.

The suit stems from an incident on October 2008, when [name withheld] was running on a public jogging path and stopped near St. Gregory Barbarigo School, 441 Sixth St., court papers say. Children were outside playing, and while he told a school employee that he was "merely resting between running intervals," police were called, the petition says.

Officers arrived and — without arresting [name withheld] or issuing a citation — asked him to leave and not to return.

The lawsuit says police officers, specifically Domangue, investigated his background. It also alleges his picture, birth date, descriptions of his physical appearance, the car he drove and other personal information were sent to several local schools. The schools are not named in the suit, but court papers listed Houma Junior High, the School for Exceptional Children and Lacache Middle School.

"In short, Mr. [name withheld] had been characterized as a sexual danger to local children," court papers filed on [name withheld]'s behalf say. "Such a characterization brought shame to Mr. [name withheld] and his family and caused him ongoing mental anguish and distress."

The findings of fact submitted by the parish said [name withheld] was seen "rotating his hips," "thrusting his hips forward" and "pushing on a chain link fence with his body, licking his lips and looking at (the children)."

He had been previously warned by officers not to return to the area, court papers filed by the parish also say.

After he returned a second time, Domangue produced the flyer and sent it out to four elementary schools. The act was not against any Houma Police policy, the findings say, and Domangue did it because [name withheld]'s repeated presence alarmed her.

Police Chief Todd Duplantis declined to comment after the judge's decision was handed down.

It was not immediately clear if the parish would appeal the suit. Alexander Crighton, the parish's attorney in the suit, did not return multiple phone calls.

Facebook mom trolled so badly she sues to stop the madness

Original Article

05/14/2012

By Suzanne Choney

A mom who dared to share words of encouragement on Facebook to an unpopular reality-show contestant found herself as the target of a hate campaign that's raged for six months. After trolls allegedly set up a fake Facebook page in her name and used it to solicit girls as young as 9, Nicola Brookes decided to sue Facebook to find the names of the unseen people who persist in harassing her.
- How familiar this sounds.  Many people we've came in contact with over the years, have done this same thing to others, and they continue to this day posting lies about people, just because they speak out and do not agree with their warped reality.

Brookes, who lives in Brighton, England, has been the target of troll hatred on Facebook since last fall, when Frankie Cocozza, an "X-Factor" contestant, was thrown off the British equivalent of "American Idol" for boasting about drug use. Brookes, whose daughter is a fan of the show, was looking at a Facebook page about Cocozza and saw all the snarky remarks posted to him.

"Keep your chin up, Frankie," she said in her Facebook post. "They'll move onto someone else soon." Move on they did, to Brookes herself.

On the fake Facebook page they created in Brookes' name, the trolls apparently solicited young girls for drugs and for sex, then posted comments on the same page calling Brookes a pedophile. The trolls also later posted Brookes’ Brighton home address and a photo of her daughter, says Brookes.
- Hopefully they were or will be arrested and thrown in prison?

Facebook removed the fake page, but Brookes wants the social network to turn over the Internet addresses of the perpetrators, hiding behind various identities. She maintains that she did nothing more to inflame their bile than share her "keep your chin up" remark.

"As soon as she posted that comment about the singer, people started hurling awful, nasty comments toward her," attorney Rupinder Bains told msnbc.com in a phone interview. Her London-based firm, Bains Cohen, took the case on a pro bono basis. Brookes, in her 40s, has Crohn's disease and has not been able to work for a while. The Facebook fiasco has made her scared to leave her home, with threats continuing, Bains said.

When the law firm asked Facebook to remove the fake page last fall, it did so quickly — "they were great," said Bains.

"But the trolling hasn't stopped," she said. "The trolls will constantly be on there, making comments about Nicola ... and then they say things on other blogs elsewhere and on their own Facebook pages. We have to take steps to get the identity of these trolls."

Facebook, contacted for comment by msnbc.com, shared this statement:

Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the people that use our service. Unlike other websites and forums Facebook has a real-name culture, which provides greater accountability and a safer and more trusted environment. We are clear that there is no place for bullying or harassment on Facebook and we respond aggressively to reports of potential abuse.

The site gives users "the tools to report abuse on every page and the option to block people from having any further contact with them. Reports involving harassment are prioritized, reviewed by a trained team of reviewers and removed if they violate our terms."

In a story in the Telegraph, a Facebook spokesman said much of the same, adding that the site responds "aggressively to reports of potential abuse," but declining to comment on the legal action.

Bains believes there may be four or five people behind the harassment/bullying effort on Facebook, but she doesn't know for sure. The law firm plans to request an injunction from the court in Britain to compel Facebook to turn over the computer addresses of those involved in the cruel campaign.

What happens if such an order is granted and the law firms gets ahold of the names? "We would see criminal prosecution once we've identified the trolls," Bains said. Charges could include violations of harassment and communications laws in Britain.

The case, she said, "just goes to show how the veil of anonymity gives an individual so much strength and power," including the power to wound.
- And it's these same idiots who are going to ruin it for everyone else.

Meanwhile, Brookes has been "through times of depression because of this," but she remains on Facebook, Bains said: "She refuses to be beaten by them."