County Sex-Offender Registry Pulled Down Because of Lawsuit Fears

10-17-17 Colorado:

As we've reported, Montrose County, on Colorado's Western Slope, pulled its sex-offender list offline following a recent court ruling in which U.S. District Court Judge Richard Matsch found that such registries constituted cruel and unusual punishment in the case of three plaintiffs.

The ruling is specific to the complainants in question, rather than everyone on the roster, and Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman has announced her intention to appeal. So why make the move now? According to a representative from the sheriff's office in Montrose, a fear of lawsuits.

"There are attorneys out there going around and finding people to sue for stuff of this nature," says Undersheriff Adam Murdie. "We know it's going to trickle down to the counties eventually, so we're kind of preempting that." ..Continued..

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ACLU Sues Over Denial of Hep C Treatment for Thousands of Prisoners

7-29-17 Colorado:

For years, inmates have complained that the Colorado of Department of Corrections has denied most of them access to wonder drugs that can cure hepatitis C, a potentially deadly virus that attacks the liver and has infected 17 percent of the American prison population. Last week, the ACLU of Colorado filed suit seeking a dramatic change in the DOC's policy, calling its approach to rationing treatment a violation of constitutional guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment.

"Colorado has an immense public-health crisis in its prisons," ACLU of Colorado legal director Mark Silverstein declared in announcing the class-action lawsuit. “Highly-effective treatment is available that could prevent deaths and fight the spread of the virus, but DOC’s cruel and arbitrary standards deny that treatment to all but a select few prisoners." ..Continued..

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Colorado’s pricey polygraph testing of sex offenders under fire as critics target accuracy, expense

See also: Professional polygrapher holds position of power on state’s sex-offender treatment board Now folks can determine whether the system is fair and balanced!

5-14-17 Colorado:

Psychologist calls state’s $5 million polygraph program “grossly excessive” as state legislature examines cost

Colorado has spent more than $5 million to administer polygraphs on convicted sex offenders over the last seven years despite concerns that the tests are so unreliable they can’t be used as evidence during civil or criminal trials.

Polygraphs help officials decide which prisoners convicted of sex offenses are suited for release from prison by probing their sexual history, attitudes about their crimes and whether they are committing new offenses. They also guide how offenders on parole or probation are supervised.

“The polygraph really gives useful information,” said Lenny Woodson, administrator for the Colorado Department of Corrections’ Sex Offender Treatment and Monitoring Program. “And we’ve made it clear in our standards that it isn’t to be used in isolation. We’re using as many avenues as possible to make treatment decisions.”

But a bipartisan cross-section of legislators and a retired judge have joined with offenders and their families to question the validity of the tests. They contend too much weight is placed on what they argue is little more than junk science. Flawed polygraphs can complicate efforts for low-risk sex offenders to get paroled and lead to new restrictions for parolees or probationers, critics say. Failure to take the tests can lead to sanctions, including eventual revocation to prison.

Studies show that up to 70 percent of U.S. states polygraph sex offenders, but experts have testified that Colorado uses the tests aggressively, even polygraphing juvenile offenders for consensual sexting. Critics contend an entrenched and profitable cottage industry, rife with conflicts of interests, has grown up around polygraphing sex offenders in Colorado. ..Continued..

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Man who died in Longmont fire was registered sex offender

4-6-17 Colorado:

The Boulder County Coroner's Office on Thursday afternoon identified a man found dead following a structure fire on Monday at a makeshift living space alongside a Longmont electrical services business.

The coroner's office stated in a news release that it has conducted an autopsy on Richard Benz, 56, but it is continuing to investigate his cause and manner of death.

Longmont police Cmdr. Joel Post said in an email that Benz had been living in the makeshift living area, which he described as being 10 feet by 10 feet in size and constructed of various pieces of wood and wood pallets.

"Investigators learned there were electrical extension cords extending from the main building at this address into the area Benz was temporarily residing," Post said. "There were electrical space heaters inside the shed where the fire occurred and where Benz had been residing."

Post said Benz was an employee at the business.

The owners of AAA Electric have not responded to requests for comment, but Post said employees of the business were aware Benz was staying in the structure and that there were electrical cords running from the main building into the living area.

Colorado Bureau of Investigations records indicate Benz was a registered sex offender who had listed AAA Electric, 24 S. Main St., as his residence.

According to online records, Benz had a 1997 conviction in Boulder County for sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust. He also had a conviction for failing to register as a sex offender in Weld County from 2008.

Longmont police and fire responded to the business on a fire report on Monday evening and found Benz's body after extinguishing the blaze, which destroyed a nearby vehicle and damaged the adjacent building.

"This case remains under investigation, which will be conducted by a Longmont police detective and fire investigators from the Longmont Fire Department," Post said. "These investigators will attempt to determine the origin and cause of the fire." ..Source.. by John Bear

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Sex offender registry mix-up puts wrong house on map

3-17-17 Colorado:

PINE JUNCTION, Colo. -- Colorado's sex offender registry is the last place Ray Crawford expected to find his address listed online.

"I couldn't believe what I was seeing," said the 52-year-old, who went to the website maintained by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation out of simple curiosity to see if any of his neighbors might be on it.

Instead, he discovered a green icon with the words "Failure to Register" placed in a spot that looked very familiar.

"Clicked on the symbol and the person’s name pops up who I bought the house from two-and-a-half years ago," said a shocked Crawford, who had no idea he bought his home from a convicted sex offender named Ray Clark.

"My worry is that somebody might want to come by and hurt me," Crawford said, before adding, "They can’t tell the difference between blue-eyed Ray and blue-eyed Ray, same name, same last initial."

If you type Ray Clark into the search bar on the sex offender registry website, it shows Clark registered to an address in Lakewood, which is accurate.

But most people search the CBI website using the "map search" function to see if they live next to any sex offenders.

That's what Ray Crawford did, never guessing he would find Ray Clark's name still listed at what is now Ray Crawford's address.

Crawford said that he now thinks the website mistake may be the reason he's felt a cold shoulder from neighbors when he says hello at the community mailbox. "I`m going to write a letter and put it on all the mailboxes, and tell them 'Hey I`m Ray, blue-eyed Ray on the hill but I`m not that guy.' It`s really embarrassing, it`s beyond embarrassing."

Susan Medina is the communications director for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and said her agency is very apologetic and anxious to fix the mistake. "With thousands of sex offenders across the state it is important that when an error is caught that we`re notified ... we don`t have a timeline of when that is going to be completed but I can tell you it is a priority."

Crawford told the Problem Solvers he's thankful FOX31 got involved, "I`m absolutely appreciative. I thank you very much for coming out here." ..Source.. by Rob Low

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After a light sentence draws outrage, Sen. Irene Aguilar wants to change how sex offenders are sentenced in Colorado

2-21-17 Colorado:

When a Boulder judge determined Austin Wilkerson wouldn’t spend a day in prison for raping an acquaintance, the decision drew national outrage. The judge cited Colorado’s indeterminate sentencing laws in rendering his decision. He feared Wilkerson would spend the rest of his life in prison if he walked through those doors.

A bill in the Colorado Senate would let judges opt for fixed prison terms for certain sex offenses instead of the “indeterminate,” potentially lifelong sentences these crimes carry now. Another would require that “low-risk” offenders be allowed to pursue treatment outside of prison if they’re not getting it in prison by the time they’re eligible for parole.

Both bills are sponsored by state Sen. Irene Aguilar, a Denver Democrat.

“The problem that the judge stated — where we have a huge backlog of people awaiting treatment and people not getting paroled and then this influences how judges sentence people made me concerned we’re having unintended consequences,” Aguilar said. ” … I hope people would see that we’ve gone perhaps a step too far with our law.”

Some prosecutors believe Aguilar’s proposed fix is itself a step too far in response to what are ultimately isolated incidents. Indeterminate sentencing serves an important function, and there are other solutions to the treatment backlog, they said.

“We don’t need to get rid of all of indeterminate sentencing to be reactive to a few cases,” said Katharina Booth, first assistant district attorney in Boulder County and head of that office’s sex assault unit.

Booth believes the legislation represents an attempt by defense attorneys to exploit outrage over the Wilkerson case to get something they’ve wanted for a long time, which is an end to indeterminate sentencing. ..Continued.. by Erica Meltzer

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Englewood may overhaul sex offender residency rules after law makes nearly the entire city off limits

2-7-17 Colorado:

Proposed measure would reduce buffers from schools, daycare centers from 2,000 feet to 1,000 feet

Englewood city leaders on Monday readied a major overhaul to a decade-old law that severely restricts where sex offenders can live in this city of 32,000 south of Denver.

Englewood’s law, enacted in 2006, prohibits sex offenders from taking up residence within 2,000 feet of a school, a day care center and other locations where children congregate, such as public pools. But that buffer, considered one of the toughest in the state, has had the effect of placing nearly the entire city off limits to those convicted of a sex crime and invited lawsuits and other challenges to what some say is an overly broad prohibition.

The City Council on Monday considered reducing that distance requirement to 1,000 feet, opening up some new parts of the city where registered sex offenders would be able to live. Specifically, the measure would increase the portion of the city open to sex offenders from 1.3 percent of Englewood properties to 21 percent.

The measure was pushed forward on a 5-1, vote and public comment will be heard on the issue at the next meeting, Feb. 21.

“This is a great compromise,” said Councilman Rick Gillit, who concedes that Englewood may have set the buffer too wide 11 years ago but still needs controls over how close a sex offender might be living to families, especially those with young children.

But others are less certain that Englewood’s move will do anything to address the larger question of what to do with those who have served their time for the crime and now need a place where they can reconnect with family members and support systems and reintegrate into society. Alison Ruttenberg, a Boulder lawyer who represents three sex offenders who sued Englewood last year after claiming the city planned to push them out, said drumming offenders out of neighborhoods doesn’t increase safety for the people living there.

Even if sex offenders aren’t living in a city, Ruttenberg said, they may still work there or pass through unaffected by any restrictions.

“You’re not keeping them out of your community; you’re just keeping them from living in your community,” she said.

She said the recidivism rate for sex offenders who successfully go through treatment is less than 1 percent and the recidivism rate for perpetrators of other felonies is far higher. Singling out sex offenders over other criminals is wrong, she said, and her legal challenge to the law remains in effect.

“People shouldn’t be afraid of sex offenders — they should be afraid of drunk drivers and burglars,” Ruttenberg said.

Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, said Monday that Englewood’s sex offender residency restriction “is a fear-based ordinance” fueled by the stigma often associated with sex crimes. The ACLU also sued Englewood over the ordinance, prompting the city to stop enforcement of the law for a while.

“These ordinances are justified as protection for children, but they don’t do anything to protect children because they don’t stop people from hanging out near where children are,” Silverstein said.

Instead they push former inmates deeper “underground” and away from family members or social structures that might stabilize their lives, he said. Silverstein and Ruttenberg said Englewood, and the half dozen other communities in Colorado that have residency restrictions on the books, should drop them. Other communities with buffers in place include Greenwood Village, Dacono and Greeley, said Meghann Dollar, a legislative and policy advocate for the Colorado Municipal League.

Dollar said the restrictions are defensible under a city’s land-use powers and that “these decisions are a matter of local concern.”

“We support a municipality’s ability to enforce its land-use authority,” she said.

But councilwoman Laurett Barrentine said she would not be supporting the new 1,000-foot buffer because it remains “arbitrary” and cannot “be substantiated that it makes the community safe.”

“Providing a false sense of security is dangerous,” she said. ..Source.. by John Aguilar

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Colorado wasting as much as $44 million a year in sex-offender program, audit says

1-6-17 Colorado:

State Rep. Joe Salazar criticizes department over delays in getting treatment to prisoners

Colorado’s Department of Corrections is wasting as much as $44 million annually because it has not fixed problems in a treatment program intended to prepare sex offenders for release from prison, a recent state audit found.

An analysis by auditors showed that nearly 1,300 prisoners in December 2015 had passed their parole eligibility date but had not received sex-offender treatment. It determined the potential cost to taxpayers by calculating the annual cost for their prolonged incarceration.

Delays in treatment are especially problematic for lifetime-supervision offenders, who must complete the treatment before they can be released from prison, according to the audit. Problems in the department’s Sex Offender Treatment and Monitoring program effectively keep these offenders in prison indefinitely. Others, who face fixed sentences, are released without treatment that is supposed to reduce recidivism, according to the audit.

“When the Department does not effectively allocate its limited resources and does not establish and maintain a working system to prioritize and enroll the sex offenders most in need of treatment while incarcerated, it creates significant public safety risks, inequities, negative financial impacts, and negative impacts on treatment effectiveness,” the performance audit from state auditor Dianne Ray’s office said.

While conceding many of the audit’s findings, corrections officials say that most of those who have not completed the treatment either did not want to enroll or failed to complete the program. The audit was released in November but provoked blistering criticism from legislators during a joint Judiciary Committee hearing this week. ..Continued.. by Christopher N. Osher

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Audit finds flaws in state prison psych programs

12-8-16 Colorado:

The Colorado Department of Corrections has several gaps in its behavioral health programs that need addressing, a state audit revealed Tuesday.

The department’s mental-health and sex-offender programs were lacking on several fronts, most of which could be attributed to lack of staff for each, the State Auditor’s Office told legislators.

On the mental health side, department staff were sometimes late in assessing and recording offender mental health needs, did not always have proper mental health treatment plans in place for offenders and did not maintain sufficient evidence that offenders were seeing mental health professionals enough or were receiving adequate out-of-cell time.

State law bars inmates with serious mental health issues from spending too much time in isolation.

“Limitations of the department’s databases used to track offenders’ mental health information and out-of-cell time contributed to the problems we found and hampered the department’s ability to monitor staff,” audit manager Trey Standley told the Legislative Audit Committee.

On the sexual offender end, the audit found that department staff were not adequately assessing and addressing treatment needs as required by law for sexual offenders.

The number of sexual offenders enrolled in treatment each year decreased from 484 in 2012 to 465 in 2015, while the number of inmates eligible for that treatment rose during that same time period from 1,527 to 1,979, the audit said.

In 2015 and 2016, the department had a staff vacancy rate of more than 20 percent for its mental health program and more than 30 percent for the sex offender program, the audit found.

“Staff constraints contributed to a number of the problems we identified,” the audit said.

The audit made 11 recommendations, including improving oversight of out-of-cell time, prohibiting offenders with serious mental issues from being housed in long-term isolation and maintaining adequate staffing to run both programs.

This year, the department received about $16.8 million to operate its mental-health program, and $4.4 million to run the sex-offender program. ..Source.. by Charles Ashby

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5 Things You Should Know About the Colorado Sex Offender Registry

11-16-15 Colorado:

Whether it’s due to media, urban legends, or word-of-mouth, many fail to realize the real impact that a sex offense conviction will have on their life.

Even after your criminal sentence is served, conviction for a sex offense can continue to have a devastating impact on your life in many unforeseeable ways. Though technically not part of your criminal punishment, sex offender registration serves as a social stigma, makes it difficult to find jobs and housing, and includes associated fees and fines that can do tremendous damage to your quality of life.

In large part, these consequences are due to Colorado’s public sex offender registry. Many sex crimes require offenders to put their name and identifying information in these records—sometimes for several years, sometimes for life. In the hope of clearing up some of the misinformation around sex offense registration, here are a few things you should know about a registering as a sex offender in Colorado.

Even Misdemeanors Can Require Registration. Though many believe that only felony charges can land someone on the registry, this simply isn’t true. There are number of misdemeanor sex offenses that can require registration.

According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the following misdemeanor offenses can require sex offender registration: ..Continued.. by Kevin Cahill A graduate of the University of Denver School of Law and a member of both the Denver Bar Association and the Colorado Bar Association, Kevin Cahill has been in private practice since 2005.

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Old laws collide with digital reality in teen sexting cases

11-16-15 Colorado:

Educators in a small Colorado town say they had no choice but alert police when they discovered that many high-schoolers were using a cellphone app to collect and hide hundreds of naked photos of themselves.

The law in Colorado and many other states classifies any explicit photos of minors as child pornography, and requires school employees to bring in police the moment they learn of it.

Prosecutors are looking for evidence of coercion and to see if any adults were involved, saying they don't intend to file criminal charges against everyone.

Meanwhile, the teachers can't even counsel the students involved, because doing so would require their confidential conversations to be reported to police as well.

"You see the mess we're in, you know?" Canon City Schools Superintendent George Welsh said. "We have to watch out for the mental health needs of our children, yet we've kind of got a structure whereby they would be nuts to come and talk to us about it."

This kind of bind is increasingly common across the country as laws from the pre-smartphone era that were intended to protect children from sexual predators collide with the digitally saturated reality of today's teens.

Last year in Fayetteville, North Carolina, a boyfriend and girlfriend who exchanged nude selfies at 16 were charged as adults, with felony sexual exploitation of a minor. Their charges were reduced to misdemeanors following an uproar.

This week, two 14-year-old boys on New York's Long Island were arrested on felony child porn charges after one was accused of recording the other having sex with a girl. As many as 20 students at another school were suspended for either sending or watching the video.

And last week, 16 students in Greenbrier, Tennessee, were charged with sexual exploitation of a minor after exchanging explicit photos on their cellphones.

Canon City, a town of 16,000 in southern Colorado, is home to several state and federal prisons. Many of its students are children of prison guards.

Authorities say the students involved hid the photos in an application that appears to be a calculator, punching in a sequence of numbers to reveal them.

The case became a national story after the school forfeited the final game of its football season, saying too many players had violated ethical standards for athletes.

Some students think the school overreacted, since older teens can legally have sex in many circumstances, even if sending and receiving explicit photos is illegal.

More than a dozen states have reduced the penalties for sexting teens in recent years, but most still treat teens as adults when it comes to possessing child pornography, possibly even labeling them as sex offenders.

Teens will continue to share explicit images on their smart phones no matter what authorities do, said Canon City High School student Elizabeth Ellis, 18.

"We're not the only high school that does it and we're not going to be the only one that gets found out," she said.

Indeed, in Denver's western suburbs, District Attorney Pete Weir's office has handled more than 100 sexting cases in the past two years, most of them referred by schools or parents, usually after the images are shared beyond the intended recipient.

Even if it turns out that teens sent the images consensually, Weir's office requires them to take self-esteem and relationship classes to avoid prosecution. Parents must attend the first and last session, and are coached on monitoring their children's phones.

This strategy can backfire: In Pennsylvania, the ACLU won a $33,000 settlement in 2010 against a school district for violating the privacy of a girl whose principal confiscated her phone, found nude photos she had taken of herself, and alerted authorities. That prosecutor required sexting girls to attend his "re-education" program to avoid prosecution on child porn charges until an appellate court ruled it unconstitutional.

Some teens, parents and legal experts say law enforcement should adapt to the reality that sexting is increasingly common among teens — about 28 percent, according to a recent study.

Jeff Temple, an associate professor and psychologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston who did the study, sees sexting as a new form of flirting and said it mostly happens between teens who are in a relationship or want to be. This behavior is best addressed by parents talking to their children about healthy relationships and boundaries, he said.

Distributing photographs to others or coercing people to share explicit photos of themselves is more serious and could merit a tougher response, he said.

Potentially allowing the entire world to see your most intimate photos is a real danger, but not one that should be punished criminally, said Marsha Levick, deputy director and chief counsel for the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.

"Sexting is a pretty dumb thing to do, but so is having sex at 14 in your parents' basement," she said. ..Source.. by Chicago Tribune

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Prosecutors Weigh Teenage Sexting: Folly or Felony?

11-15-15 Colorado:

The high school sweethearts were 16 when they traded nude cellphone pictures. There was no evidence of coercion or harassment. But under a literal interpretation of North Carolina law, each had distributed child pornography.

In February, prosecutors in Fayetteville charged the two teenagers with the felony of “exploiting a minor,” which could have brought them years in prison and decades on the sex offender registry, for privately sharing images of themselves.

After an outcry, both were eventually allowed to plead, instead, to misdemeanors. They were put on a year’s probation.

Whether and how to charge teenage sexters has become a quandary for prosecutors nationwide, forcing them to weigh when to muster the harsh force of criminal justice, often with ill-fitting laws from a pre-Internet era, and when to back off and let schools and families deal with youthful indiscretions.

Facing those choices on a large scale now, in the glare of national attention, is Thom LeDoux, the district attorney in the county that includes Cañon City, Colo., where more than 100 students at the high school were apparently exchanging nude pictures.

Mr. LeDoux said in a telephone interview that he does not plan to file charges against those who simply passed around pictures. But felony charges could be in store for some, he added — if an adult was involved; if there was evidence of coercion, illegal sexual activity or bullying; or if pictures were posted on public websites.

Erotically charged cellphone pictures or videos passed around by teenagers often meet the legal definition of child pornography, making them the subject of felony laws that were written with true predators in mind. So when a 16-year-old girl emails a raunchy picture of herself to a boy, she has in theory created and distributed child pornography. If the boy sends the picture to 20 others, he has distributed, and they all have possessed, child pornography. ..Continued.. by ERIK ECKHOLM

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Hundreds of Nude Photos Jolt Colorado School

See also: 'Ghost app' used by students in sexting investigation

11-7-15 Colorado:

CAÑON CITY, Colo. — At least 100 students at a high school in Cañon City traded naked pictures of themselves, the authorities said Friday, part of a large sexting ring.

The revelation has left parents outraged, administrators searching for missed clues, and the police and the district attorney’s office debating whether to file child pornography charges — including felony charges — against some of the participants.

George Welsh, the superintendent of the Cañon City school system, said students at Cañon City High School had been circulating 300 to 400 nude photographs, including images of “certainly over 100 different kids,” on their cellphones. “This is a lot of kids involved,” he said, adding that the children in the pictures were believed to be students at the high school as well as eighth graders from the middle school.

Members of the high school football team, the Cañon City Tigers, were at the center of the sexting ring, Mr. Welsh said. On Thursday night, separate community meetings were held for parents of football players and parents of other students to address the scandal, which has shocked this quiet, semirural community of 16,000. The team was forced to forfeit its final game of the season.

Because it is a felony to possess or distribute child pornography, the charges could be serious. But because most of the people at fault are themselves minors and, in some cases, took pictures of themselves and sent them to others, law enforcement officials are at a loss as to how to proceed. “Consenting adults can do this to their hearts’ content,” said Thom LeDoux, the district attorney, but “if the subject is under the age of 18, that’s a problem.”

He added that he was not interested in arresting hundreds of children and would “use discretion” if he decided to file charges.

Mr. Welsh said a significant percentage of the student body at Cañon City High School had participated, with boys and girls involved in seemingly equal numbers. The photo-sharing, some of which took place in school, was done largely on cellphone applications called “vault apps” that look innocent enough — some look like calculators — but are really secret troves of photographs accessible after entering a password.

While sexting among children is a rampant problem, “I hope no other school has it at the level we have it at,” Bret Meuli, the principal of Cañon City High School, said in an interview in his office. “But I fear we aren’t the only ones.”

Students at the school described a competitive point system that classmates used to accrue photographs. Different point values were assigned to different students. Students who collected naked photographs gained points by adding these desirable children to their collections. Isaac Stringer, a junior interviewed outside the high school who said he did not participate in the photo-sharing, called the boy with the largest collection “the pimp of pictures.”

The repercussions are likely to resonate loudly over the days and weeks ahead in this small town, a tightly knit community ringed by correctional centers, where many people are employed, as well as tourist attractions such as Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, which claims to have “America’s highest suspension bridge.”

Mr. Welsh, the superintendent, said in a statement that “because a large number of our high school football players were implicated in this behavior, the coaching staff and administration, after careful thought and consideration, decided that stepping on the field to play this weekend to represent the Cañon City community is just not an option.”

The “sexting scandal,” as parents are calling it, shocked many, and it has also elicited anger from parents who say they knew about this type of photo-sharing for years and sought unsuccessfully to get school officials to intervene. Heidi Wolfgang, 41, a mother who no longer lives in the district, said in a telephone interview that she had spoken to a Cañon City Middle School counselor in 2012 after she found photographs of a nude adolescent on a cellphone owned by her daughter, then 12.

“He told me there was nothing the school could do because half the school was sexting,” Ms. Wolfgang said. She called the response “heartbreaking,” and said she eventually decided to educate her child at home.

Mr. Welsh said that like other school systems across the country, Cañon City schools had received reports of students’ exchanging lewd photographs, but that he had not been aware of the scope of the issue until recently, when officials received anonymous tips through a system called Colorado Safe2Tell.

“If there’s not a lead that takes you to this larger thing going on, why would you go there?” Mr. Welsh said.

Another mother, Lisa Graham, 46, said her daughter, now a junior at the high school, had been “propositioned by multiple guys” during her freshman year. “She received unsolicited photos from guys, which she immediately deleted,” Ms. Graham said by telephone. “I’m frustrated if people knew and didn’t shut it down three years ago.”

Mr. Meuli has been principal for six years, and he was assistant principal of the school before that. He said that the school had had to handle a few instances in which a girl would break up with a boy and fear that he would circulate intimate photos of her, but that nothing this serious had been brought to his attention before.

What to do about a sexting scandal involving potentially hundreds of students was not covered in his master’s degree classes, Mr. Meuli said — but these days, it should be, he added.

The high school has turned over a cellphone that contains several hundred images to the police, and investigators will try to identify the children in the pictures, according to Paul Schultz, the Cañon City police chief. No arrests have been made, Chief Schultz said, and parents have been notified about the apps that can be used to mask the illicit photographs.

Mr. LeDoux, the district attorney, said the investigation would look into whether any adults were involved, whether children were bullied into participating, and whether any illegal sexual contact occurred.

Amy Adele Hasinoff, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver and the author of a new book, “Sexting Panic,” contends that schools need to find new ways to talk to students about the issue. Rather than just demanding that students abstain from sending risqué images, she said, educators should aim for open conversations that involve guidance in “safer sexting” with trusted partners.

Teachers and school officials “think they’re protecting people from harm,” Professor Hasinoff said. “But we know it doesn’t work.” ..Source.. by KASSONDRA CLOOS and JULIE TURKEWITZ

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After their sentences are complete, sexually violent predators are allowed to register as 'homeless'

7-4-15 Colorado:

DENVER - A recently released sexually violent predator registered his Denver address as "homeless," which turns out to be a common occurrence.

Earlier this week, Denver police posted a community notification on YouTube and Facebook about the release of --. He registered his address as the 1100 block of Park Avenue West, which is near Park Avenue West and Broadway. That location is near the Denver Rescue Mission and other homeless services.

According to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, sexually violent predators are given that designation because they meet certain criteria:

---A sexually violent predator is an adult who has been convicted on or after July 1, 1999 of a sex crime in accordance with statute committed on or after July 1, 1997.

---An SVP's victim must have been a stranger to the offender or a person the offender established a relationship with for the sole purpose of sexual victimization.

---An SVP must be likely to commit subsequent sex offenses based upon the results of a risk assessment screening instrument administered to the offender.

"The only requirements are that they register. You can't mandate somebody to have a home," said Chris Lobanov-Rostovsky, program manager with Colorado's sex offender management unit. "There is no state law that requires them to be in a certain location."

7NEWS checked and found 41 sex offenders listed as homeless in the 1100 block of Park Avenue West.

"This is a very popular block for them to register people as transients," said Josh Geppelt, senior director of emergency services for the Denver Rescue Mission. "It's kind of those Catch-22s, you may not want them next door to you in a home or an apartment, but you also don't want them homeless on the streets."

"To find residence as a sexually violent predator, and to have a landlord who would then be willing to have their address listed on a state site saying a sexually violent predator is registered here, some people are reluctant to rent in those situations," said Lobanov-Rostovsky.

"It's very dangerous because there are a lot of women out here," said downtown Denver resident Nikki Dorritie. "You should have an ankle bracelet on, to track your whereabouts, even if you're done with your time because you still have the chance to do it again."

In the case of Greer, he has served his sentence and is no longer on parole or probation.

"The law requires them to check-in more frequently with law enforcement, as a result, so there's greater safeguards in place in those situations," said Lobanov-Rostovsky. "They're expected to tell law enforcement where they're staying and if they're not staying there, they're in violation of their requirements to register and they can be charged with that as a 'failure to register' charge."

In May, another sexually violent predator, who registered as homeless in the 1100 block of Park Avenue West was arrested in the violent attack on a student on the Auraria campus. James Alphonso Holmes was charged with attempted first-degree murder and attempted sexual assault. He had been living as homeless since March. ..Source.. by Marshall Zelinger

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Meeting planned on sex offender in Fleming

4-1-15 Colorado:

The Logan County Sheriff's Office announced Tuesday that it will hold a meeting Thursday, April 2, at 6 p.m. in the Fleming High School gymnasium about the release of a sexually violent predator being released into the community.

"Educational information regarding sexual offending will also be presented by a team of professionals involved in the management of sex offenders in our community. The goal of the meeting is to enhance public safety and protection," the release states. "Vigilantism, or use of this information to harass, threaten, or intimidate any of the following people is criminal behavior and will not be tolerated: the offender, the offender's significant others, and the community notification team."

Law enforcement agencies are required by law to notify communities when a convicted sex offender — one required to register with law enforcement — who is considered to present a high potential to re-offend plan to take residence in the community.

Unless a court sets restrictions on a sex offender, the individual is constitutionally free to live wherever he or she chooses. "Sex offenders have always lived in our communities, but they were not required to notify law enforcement of their residence until registration laws were implemented pursuant to the Jacob Wetterling Act of 1994," the release notes.

Due to the mature content of the information that will be presented, the LCSO advises children should not attend the meeting, but parents are encouraged to review the appropriate SVP information and public safety information with their children after the meeting. Children under 15 unaccompanied by an adult will not be permitted to attend the meeting.

If you are unable to attend the Community Meeting you may call to schedule an appointment to receive the information. If you have questions, please, call Investigator Mike Archer at 970-522-2578. ..Source.. by Journal-Advocate staff

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Child safety bill to strengthen background check rules moves forward at Colorado State Capitol

2-4-2015 Colorado:

DENVER - State legislators moved Wednesday to tighten background check requirements for all 64 county human services agencies, in response to an ongoing CALL7 investigation that exposed serious child safety failures in Denver and across Colorado.

The Senate Health and Human Services Committee unanimously approved SB15-087, which would broaden the type of offenses for which potential caretakers can be rejected. If it becomes law, the list would include misdemeanor sex crimes or sexual conduct.

The bill also codifies the list of background checks each human services agency is required to complete, including searches of court records, sex offender registries, and national crime databases.

In addition, the proposal would grant access to critical background check materials to Guardians Ad Litem, or court-appointed attorneys, who represent children in placement. Surprisingly, those attorneys cannot currently access criminal histories to verify whether proper checks have been completed.

The issue was first brought to light when CALL7 Investigator John Ferrugia found Denver Human Services had placed four children with a convicted sex offender, and then with a woman convicted of child abuse.

Those reports prompted the Colorado Department of Human Services to launch a state-wide audit of fingerprint and background checks, which found only 53 percent of the required checks completed in a random sample of Denver cases. Among 450 cases sampled in all Colorado counties, only 65 percent of checks were complete.

Dennis Goodwin, the state's Child Protection Ombudsman, called Wednesday's vote a critical step forward.

"If someone had a felony sex assault arrest but a misdemeanor conviction, children could be placed there," Goodwin said. "And we want to clean that up."

Goodwin said giving Guardians Ad Litem access to criminal background information will help ensure that the juvenile court knows the status of background checks. The bill would also hold judges accountable for making sure those checks are properly conducted.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will now hear the bill, before it can move on to a vote in the full Senate. ..Source.. by John Ferrugia, Sandra Barry

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Angry mob in Denver attacks man thought to be sexual predator

5-20-2013 Colorado:

DENVER – Residents angry that police had not warned them about sex assaults of children took matters into their own hands, chasing down a man they thought was the attacker, pelting him with rocks and leaving him with a bloody face in Colorado, authorities said Monday.

Pueblo police later released the man because of lack of evidence, The Pueblo Chieftain reported.

Neighborhood residents were looking for a man suspected of two separate sexual acts when they got word that a man matching the description had been spotted, said Alex Pacheco, one of the pursuers.

The group confronted the man and he ran.

Pursuers surrounded him and punched him in the face, police Capt. Tom Rummel said. Arriving officers shoved the man into a police car and whisked him to the station for questioning. He was not seriously injured.

"The primary officer on the scene said get him out of here," Rummel said.

Pacheco told the newspaper that residents were canvassing the area looking for the man who committed the sex crimes during the past few months.

One incident involved the sexual assault of a girl in her home. In the other, authorities said a man with the same description exposed himself to another child.

Police said the mob grew to about a half-dozen people as residents learned of the chase and joined in.

"We went through the right channels in contacting the police but there hasn't been much response," Pacheco said. "We can't wait around any longer without doing something. These are children that this man is after and we can't let any more children get hurt by him."

Rummel said police had notified the media and posted warnings on social media about the attacks, but authorities are not required by law to notify residents because no one had been arrested.

Rummel said police only had a vague description of the suspect because he wore a bandanna over his face.

The 54-year-old man accosted by the mob did not want to file charges against his pursuers, the chief said.

"He said folks were reacting to a bad situation and he told the officer, `I don't want to go that route,"' Rummel said. "He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The name of the man was not released because no charges were filed. He agreed to give investigators a DNA sample so he could be ruled out as a suspect. ..Source.. by Fox News

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Man punished as sex offender, but was never charged with sex assault

UPDATE 1-21-15: See Comment by Mr. Gross

5-27-2014 Colorado:

Dale Gross was sent to prison twice for parole violations related to being a sex offender even though he has never been convicted of a sex offense and the woman who originally accused him of rape recanted.

Gross is one of about 800 convicts in Colorado who have been "administratively" classified as a sex offender and must abide by stringent rules when paroled as though they were convicted of rape or child molestation.

In Gross' case, an assumption was made that his accuser lied when she recanted, his attorney, Alison Ruttenberg, said.

Ruttenberg said she hopes to make what happened to Gross a test case for the hundreds of offenders classified administratively as sex offenders without an underlying Colorado conviction.

But state officials say Colorado inmates are administratively classified as "S4" sex offenders for several reasons, including:

• They were accused but never charged with a sex offense.

• They were acquitted of sex charges but convicted of other charges.

• They were previously convicted of a sex offense in another state or as a juvenile.

• They entered a plea agreement in which sex offense charges were dismissed against them.

Adrienne Jacobson, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Corrections, said many offenders in the last category admit the sex offense in a findings of fact statement signed by the offender.

She said inmates are identified as S4s only after they take diagnostic tests at the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center and a panel of experts determines the classification. The Colorado Parole Board ultimately decides which offenders must follow rules meant for sex offenders.

Jacobson said a panel decided to designate Gross as an S4 shortly after his conviction on burglary and assault charges.

In 1998, Denver prosecutors charged Gross with second-degree assault, kidnapping, trespassing, attempted murder and burglary in a series of domestic related incidents.

Although a jury convicted Gross of second-degree assault, he claimed he stabbed his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend in self-defense because the man was pushing him down on a stove burner.

Originally, his ex-girlfriend told police Gross kidnapped and sexually assaulted her. But Gross was never charged with a sex offense, and the woman testified at Gross' trial that she had sex willingly with him on two occasions, Ruttenberg said. She said the girlfriend told jurors she lied because she didn't want her family to know she was still having a relationship with Gross.

Gross, acquitted on the attempted murder charge, was convicted of second-degree assault, burglary, trespassing and simple assault. The second-degree assault charge was later overturned on appeal.

In September 2010, Gross filed a federal lawsuit against the parole board and the executive director of the Colorado DOC seeking to enjoin them from punishing him for allegedly violating sex offender parole rules. He dropped his suit when they agreed not to revoke his parole for violating sex offender rules, a court document shows.

But Gross' parole was revoked in January 2011 for failing to participate in sex offender treatment.

Gross filed another federal lawsuit in 2011. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch summarily dismissed the cases last week: See Case-1 and Case-2. Ruttenberg said she will file an appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. ..Source.. by Kirk Mitchell

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Reasonable residency rules for sex offenders in Commerce City

5-7-2014 Colorado:

Commerce City's solution to deciding where sex offenders can live is a model for how communities can reasonably handle residency requirements.

Commerce City on Monday passed an amendment to its residency requirements, allowing registered sex offenders who aren't sexually violent to seek exceptions to rules that ban them from living within 1,000 feet of a school, park, playground or day care center.

Officials will evaluate requests for exceptions on a case-by-case basis, considering the "public interest and the applicant's stated concerns."

The city kept more restrictive limits on violent offenders that would allow them to live in about 11 percent of the city. Non-violent offenders can now live in about twice that area without an exemption.

The amendment makes sense in the wake of broad restrictions in other communities that have been successfully challenged.

Last year, U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson struck down Englewood's 2006 residency ordinance that restricted sex offenders from living in about 99 percent of the city's homes.

Englewood has appealed the decision, but the judge's ruling is common sense. If Englewood can banish all sex offenders, then any community can do the same — meaning Colorado would simply be trying to export its problem.

What Commerce City passed sets strict limits for where sex offenders convicted of felonies may live. It also gives offenders with lower-level convictions a chance to plead their cases.

Hearing officers will accept oral and written statements and will be able to consider several factors, such as remorse, date of the incident, and the offender's history since the incident.

This is what good government does. Instead of a blanket law, residency should be considered with all of the pertinent information available to ensure the community is safe and the offender who has been punished is treated fairly. ..Source.. by Denver Post Editorial Board

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Sex offender residency restrictions being scaled back

5-5-2014 Colorado:

Less than 10 years after many cities rushed to draw restrictions and boundaries on where registered sex offenders could live, the trend is now reversing after a court case ruled one city's restrictions in conflict of state interests.

Englewood's 2006 ordinance restricting where sex offenders can live "impermissibly conflicts with the application and effectuation of the state interest in the uniform treatment, management, rehabilitation and reintegration of sex offenders," wrote U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in his order.

The order was published in August after a lawsuit on behalf of a sex offender who bought a house in Englewood. The order states that restrictive "not in my backyard ordinances" can have a domino effect, eventually forbidding any sex offenders from living anywhere in Colorado.

The Englewood city ordinance stated that sex offenders convicted of a felony had to be at least 2,000 feet away from schools, parks and playgrounds and at least 1,000 feet away from any day care, recreation center or public swimming pool.

In the city of almost 7 square miles, that made 99 percent of the city's residences off limits.

"Our ordinance was not changed. It's essentially unenforceable now," said Michael Flaherty, Englewood's deputy city manager.

Hoping to avoid a similar lawsuit, Greeley changed its rules in February to scale back on some restrictions.

On Monday, Commerce City has a second-reading vote to approve a new ordinance.

Greenwood Village, among the first to enact restrictions and the basis for Englewood's laws, is waiting to see how the Englewood case plays out in court.

Flaherty said Englewood filed an appeal in September and also has asked the Colorado Supreme Court to advise the appeals court. The court responded last month, accepting the case.

The lawsuit against the city was filed when Stephen Brett Ryals, who bought a house in Englewood with his wife, was later told he couldn't live there.

The same thing happened later to another man in Commerce City.

"We didn't know whether we wanted to wait or whether we wanted to change the ordinance, so we worked with the ACLU," Commerce City Deputy City Attorney Karen Stevens said.

The American Civil Liberties Union had stepped in to help the men in both cases, and provided studies and resources for Commerce City as city officials drafted the new ordinance that council is expected to approve Monday.

As part of the changes, Commerce City now will have an application process for sex offenders who aren't sexually violent predators to seek exception from the rules. Officials would evaluate the request and the public safety threat on a case-by-case basis. ..Source.. by Yesenia Robles

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