IL- Man wrongly ends up on sex offender list

Police will always say, that offenders must accept responsibility. However, when the shoe is on the other foot, police will try to wiggle out of admitting any error!

10-24-2009 Illinois:

Scott Ibarra had no idea he was wrongly listed as a sex offender until a pal pointed it out. A year later, the local cops still won't tell him how it happened.

Ibarra's name, the address of his Joliet home and his physical description were placed in the state's sex offender registry under a charge of aggravated criminal sexual assault for a month and 10 days in 2008.

"I had no clue about any of this stuff that was in there," the 37-year-old said of being incorrectly included in the state's list of sex offenders.

In fact, Ibarra, 37, said he only learned he was on the state's list of sex offenders after a police officer he is friends with alerted him to it exactly a year ago, on Oct. 14, 2008.

Since that time, Ibarra has attempted to find out how he was wrongly branded a sex offender, but says he has been frustrated at every turn.

No answers

After his friend asked him why he was on the state's sex offender registry, Ibarra grabbed the phone. "I immediately called" the state police, he said.

Ibarra was told the matter would be looked into, but that since it was late in the afternoon, it might not be resolved by the close of business.

"The very next day, about 10 or 11 a.m., I got a call back that I was taken off the Web site," he said.

When he asked how he ended up on it in the first place, he said, the state police informed him they were notified by the Shorewood police that he was a sex offender and should be listed on the registry.

Ibarra said he then attempted to get answers from the Shorewood police -- but those answers have proven elusive.

"No information, no nothing," he said. "To this day they still have given me nothing."

Overturned conviction

Even with his perceived lack of cooperation from the Shorewood police, Ibarra is pretty sure he knows what made them think he belonged on the list.

In 1997, while he was serving in the Navy, a court martial found Ibarra guilty of rape and sentenced him to four years in prison. A female acquaintance had accused Ibarra of drugging and sexually assaulting her. Ibarra maintained the sex was consensual.

Two years and six months into his sentence, the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the conviction. Ibarra was freed and his record cleared -- at least until Shorewood police decided to tell the state he was a sex offender.

Who's to blame?

After Ibarra found out he was on the list, Shorewood police Chief Robert Puleo discussed the matter with him at the behest of state Rep. Tom Cross, R-Oswego.

Puleo said police Lt. Jeff Hanley, who has since retired, alerted the state police to Ibarra's rape conviction and "the state took it and ran with it."

Hanley confirmed this, explaining he ran Ibarra's criminal history while investigating complaints made against Ibarra by his ex-wife, a Shorewood resident. Ibarra and his former wife have been involved in an acrimonious custody battle over their daughter.

Hanley insists he only referred Ibarra's case to the state for further investigation.

"There's no way I put him on the list. I inquired" about Ibarra, Hanley said.

"I can only put people on the sex offender list as a Shorewood police officer if they are Shorewood residents."

But state police Lt. Scott Compton placed the responsibility squarely on the Shorewood Police Department.

"We don't do the registry. That happens at the local agency," Compton said. "We received notification from the Shorewood Police Department that Mr. Ibarra committed an offense" that would land him on the sex offender registry.

"Once we were notified that he was arrested for a registrable offense, we added him to the database," he added.

Other mistakes on list?

But Hanley maintains he was only asking the state to investigate further when he sent Ibarra's information.

"All I was asking was, why wasn't this guy on the site?" he said. "Then I heard nothing until three or four months later when he showed up at our station wanting to know why he was on the Web site. I didn't know he was up there."

Compton explained that the state police considered Ibarra to be compliant with the terms of the registry because he had yet to be contacted and ordered to report to local police.

And while Ibarra eventually found out from a friend that he was on the sex offender registry, it was a full 39 days before he learned he was listed. Ibarra's wife, Tracy Ibarra, finds this particularly troubling.

"I said, 'Scott, if they've done this to you, they must have done this to someone else," she said.

Compton did not have statistics for the number of people incorrectly placed on the sex offender registry. He said that while the number varies, there are more than 24,000 listed.

Ibarra admits he is speculating, but wonders if being mistakenly listed as a sex offender caused him trouble and misery during the 40 days he was on the list.

"The day I ended up on the Web site I lost my job, coincidentally," he said.

Ibarra said he is fighting for justice, but does not know how he can be made whole.

"People look at that site all the time, and I don't know who saw it," he said. "Once you ring a bell, you can't unring it." ..Source.. by JOE HOSEY