Sex offenders seek residency restriction exemptions

2-27-2013 Wisconsin:

JEFFERSON - When the average person visualizes a registered sex offender, an image comes to mind of a pedophile, an older man who's attracted to elementary school-age children and who deviously works to set up opportunities to prey on youngsters.

No one wants that person living next door, or across the street from a school.

But what of an 18-year-old who impregnates his 15-year-old girlfriend or a high school senior in a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy? What of a 17-year-old who, at a party rife with illicit drugs and alcohol, gropes a younger peer in a non-consensual, sexual manner?

All of these acts are illegal and those convicted of perpetrating them are required to register as sex offenders.

But is a teen offender, now grown, still a threat to youngsters in the community?

It depends on the case, say two registered sex offenders who are seeking exceptions from residency regulations recently passed by the City of Jefferson.

Both men assert that they pose no danger to local children, but that this regulation does threaten their ability to maintain a job, to settle down with their own families, and to grow past a sometimes rocky past.

Daniel McWilliams was living in the Hilltop Hotel when he was given 10 days to get out, as a new Jefferson ordinance would no longer permit him to stay there. For the time being, he said, he has moved in with his mother-in-law.

McWilliams, now 32, was 18 when he was convicted of sexual contact with his girlfriend, whom he said he thought was 17, but who turned out to be 15.

"She had an ID that said she was 17. I thought, 'no big deal,'" McWilliams said.

McWilliams, who had been in trouble with the law for unrelated matters, immediately got arrested again and since then has been classified as a sex offender.

Fourteen years later, he said, he has a good job at Master Mold in Johnson Creek and he is trying to build a life for himself.

"Nobody has really cared about my record - this is the first major problem I've had with my record," he said.

John Sampe, another offender who is seeking an exemption from the Jefferson residency restriction, initially was grandfathered in so he could continue to reside at his current address, but he ran into difficulty when he sought to move to a larger house that would better accommodate his family. ...continued... by Pam Chickering Wilson