Sex offenders near schools

REGION: 76 live within blocks of region's schoolyards, parks, day-care centers

BY MARC CHASE
Times Staff Writer

From the porch of his home, a 69-year-old Hammond man convicted of repeatedly having sex with his 12-year-old adopted daughter can see the busy schoolyard of Thomas Edison Elementary School across the street.

In Valparaiso, another man convicted of felony indecent liberty with a child lives in a home sandwiched between the Thomas Jefferson Middle School sports field, which borders the rear of his residence, and the Indiana Immanuel Lutheran School, about a block away from his front door. Also in the home are his girlfriend and an infant.

In Calumet City, a 34-year-old man convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child under the age of 18 lives four houses down from the front steps of Thornton Fractional North High School. A ring of the doorbell, and his teen-aged daughter answers.

The three men are among at least 76 of the region's 533 registered sex offenders -- most of whom had child victims -- living within 1,000 feet, or about three blocks, of public and private schools, a computerized map generated by The Times shows.

A startling fact to many region residents, including rape victims and their families: Laws in Indiana and Illinois do not prohibit most of those offenders from living within sight of schools, day-care facilities and other places where children congregate.

And in some cases, offenders have addresses listed on law enforcement registries that place them in violation of laws that seek to keep at least short distances between select offenders and schools or day-care facilities.

To the mother of a 10-year-old girl raped by a neighbor in Gary eight years ago, any adult convicted of sexually violating a child -- whether related to the offender or not -- should be forever stripped of any right to live or loiter near school grounds and other potential victims.

Law enforcement should do all it can to keep the offenders away, she argued.

In Indiana, sex offenders are prohibited from residing within 1,000 feet -- or about three blocks -- of schools or day-care centers while they are on probation or parole, unless they receive a rare reprieve from a judge. But once they are no longer under the supervision of courts and probation officers, they can live where they choose.

And in Illinois, sex offenders' homes are to be kept 500 feet -- or about a block and a half -- away from schools, a distance well within sight of places where children play. The law indefinitely applies to sex offenders who had child victims.

The idea behind both laws is to keep those who have victimized children at a safe distance from them.

But critics said neither law achieves that goal.

In nearly all 76 cases reviewed by The Times, the sex offenders were living near schools, day-care centers and parks where children play -- and most were doing it legally.

The Times' map and visits to some of the addresses revealed:

- All 76 list addresses on either the Indiana or Illinois sex offender registries within or near the edges of 1,000-foot zones mapped around region schools.

- 22 of those offenders either live or have lived within distances of less than 500 feet of schools, with at least three living directly across the street from schoolyards and parks. On school days, children walking to school pass by the front steps of the homes.

- Seven offenders -- five in Indiana and two in Illinois -- list addresses on the sex offender registries that are in violation of residency restriction laws. Two of offenders are back in prison, one is in the process of moving, one is wanted on a warrant for failing to renew his annual sex-offender registration, and three others remain in the restricted zones. But all seven are living or have lived in violation of residency restriction laws -- and were undetected by law enforcement.

Two criminal probation officers in Lake and Porter counties agree that laws should be on the books in Indiana to keep some sex offenders permanently from establishing residences near schools, day-care facilities and parks.

Others who counsel sex offenders under terms of the convicts' parole or probation point out, however, that most offenders listed on public registries chose victims who were family members or children of close friends and did not stalk schoolyards for their prey.

But allowing the offenders -- whether they are on probation or not -- to live in homes that children must pass each day on the way to school is asking for trouble, the mother of the Gary victim said.

Molesters near schools

On Aug. 5, 1999, from the front yard of her friend's Hammond home, a 12-year-old girl noticed a man watching her from the window of his white car. When she later began walking down an alley near the friend's house to get home, the same man, 35, grabbed her shirt from behind, threatened to kill her if she struggled and dragged her to his nearby apartment.

He threw her onto a love seat, bound her wrists to the leg of a coffee table with a handkerchief, masturbated in front of her and then attempted to undress her.

Lake County court documents show the girl escaped from the handkerchief binding, kicked the man in the groin and ran from the home.

The man's guilty plea to a charge of criminal confinement was supposed to be enough to keep him from living within 1,000 feet of any school or day care while he served about two years on parole.

But, apparently undetected by parole officers, he moved in with his sister -- and her two teen-aged children -- about 950 feet away and within eyesight of Hammond High School. The home also is directly across the street from a basketball court, a park where children play and a public swimming pool.

During a Times' visit to the home in June, the man's sister, who owns the house, said the offender had been sent back to prison to complete a four-year sentence because he failed to check in with his parole officer. In the several months he had been living in the home -- along with her two minor children -- he had never mentioned any restrictions regarding living near schools or day-care facilities, said the sister, who spoke to The Times under condition that her name not be printed.

Another sex offender, who spoke with The Times under condition that neither his name nor addresses be printed, said his parole officer never told him about any residency restrictions.

The man, a 26-year-old parolee, lives within three blocks of The Greater First Christian Academy -- a pre-kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school in East Chicago. The Times' map shows his address falls within the 1,000-foot restricted safety zone barring those on parole or probation from living near schools or day-care facilities in Indiana.

He said he was never told about the 1,000-foot rule -- even though a document in his court file spells out the restriction -- and that his parole officer never told him he was living too close to a school.

Senior parole agent Clark Matotte, who handles that offender's case, did not return messages left by The Times on his voice mail.

"I thought it was 100 feet, or something," said the offender, who pleaded guilty in August 2002 to felony child molesting for fondling his daughters -- at the time ages 6 and 7. He has about six months left on parole.

The offender maintains that he is no danger to children and that the mother of his daughters' falsely accused him of molesting the girls. If he forced sex on anyone, he said, it was the girls' mother, not the girls themselves.

But he also agrees that child molesters should not be allowed to live or go anywhere near schools.

The Times' investigation also revealed a registered sex offender in Calumet City living within 500 feet of a school -- a violation of Illinois' residency restriction.

That 34-year-old offender lives with his wife and daughter in a home four houses down from Thornton Fractional North High School. The Clerk of Cook County's 6th Circuit Court refused to produce the offender's court file without a judge's order, saying it was sealed because the victim was a minor.

But a court docket search of the man's case indicates he initially was charged with 10 counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault, one count of criminal sexual assault, one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, four counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of kidnapping, one count of aggravated battery and one count of unlawful restraint. The charges stem from a 1995 offense against a victim under the age of 18.

In a plea deal with prosecutors in 1997, the docket indicates the offender pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was sentenced to four years of probation.

His wife, responding to a letter hand-delivered by The Times to the offender's home, said her husband was unwilling to comment about his case.

Perfectly legal

With the hundreds of offenders that probation, parole and law enforcement officials must track in the region, some -- like the seven found in The Times' investigation -- can slip beneath the radar, said John Thorstad, Lake County's chief of probation.

"We try to do our best, and only a few offenders showing addresses where they shouldn't be versus the hundreds you found that are living where they should is a pretty good record," Thorstad told The Times.

But what bothers Thorstad and Stephen Meyer, Porter County's assistant probation chief, is dozens of sex offenders can and do live where they please once terms of their probation or parole are complete.

Meyer, whose office monitors some sex offenders after they are released from prison, said a probation of a few years often is not enough to rehabilitate the worst offenders -- those who violated children.

"One problem is that you put all of these controls on the offender while they are in jail, prison or on probation -- all of these rules are in place. Then, one day, the rules just all go away, and the offenders don't have that structure anymore. They are no longer on probation and can go and live where they want," Meyer said.

Couple that with a system that has little or no success in curing pedophiles, and the public has reason for concern, said Meyer, whose officers make visits to the homes of probationary sex offenders and sometimes employ land surveyors to ensure they are not living too close to schools.

Lake and Porter counties have had some success in changing offenders' behaviors through post-prison counseling programs, Meyer pointed out.

"But once a pedophile, always a pedophile," said Meyer, arguing a need for some offenders -- particularly those who prey on children -- to remain on probation and to be bound by the state's 1,000-foot residency restriction for life. "There is nothing wrong with lifetime probation in some of these cases."

Thorstad agreed, even though most sex offenders, whose names and addresses are listed on public and law enforcement registries, did not stalk schoolyards, parks or day-care centers in search of their victims.

"They groomed their victims, got to know them," he said, noting that the majority of sex offenses against children are committed by a parent, step-parent or close family friend.

As a parent himself, Thorstad said he understands why the public would want to keep anyone who has molested children -- regardless of how old the offense is or whether the offender knew the victim -- from living near the schools and day-care centers their children attend every day.

One mother, formerly of Gary and now living in southern Indiana, agreed.

Her daughter -- at age 10 -- was raped by a neighbor who she believed had been a family friend. That offender, no longer on parole or probation, is living across the street from a Gary elementary school.

"It's perfectly legal for him to be there, and that's just wrong," she said. "It's disgusting and should not be tolerated."

Copyright 2004 nwitimes.com
Your information source in Northwest Indiana