Victim of vigilante mob sues Philly police

3-23-2011 Pennsylvania:

PHILADELPHIA, March 22 (UPI) -- A man attacked by a mob who wrongly believed he had raped an 11-year-old girl has sued Philadelphia police, saying they encouraged street justice.

Michael Zenquis, 28, who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday, names both the city and the police department as defendants, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.

Zenquis said he was beaten after police released a tip from an anonymous caller about a man nicknamed "Romeo," a name applied to him because of his voice. He ended up in the hospital after being hit with a baseball bat, a plank and fists.

"Not only was he beaten up by a bunch of civilians who jumped him out of the clear blue sky, he was also identified as a rapist and not just a rapist, but a child rapist," Zenquis' lawyer, Jonathan Feinberg, said. "He was labeled as this monster criminal with no basis whatsoever."

A day after Zenquis was attacked, another group of people surrounded a suspect, Jose Carrasquillo, who had been named as a "person of interest," beat him and held him for police. Carrasquillo is now serving a 30- to 66-year prison sentence.

Two of Zenquis' alleged attackers were arrested, and the father of the 11-year-old later apologized to him, while thanking the crowd that beat Carrasquillo. ..Source.. UPI.com

No new jail time in Hopewell sex offender hit-and-run case

See background story

10-17-2011 Virginia:

HOPEWELL _ A 20-year-old man accused of trying to run over a convicted sex offender as he fled on a moped entered a plea today that calls for no additional jail time, an agreement that was angrily denounced by the victim.

Daniel R. Narron of Hopewell pleaded guilty in Hopewell Circuit Court to attempted unlawful wounding, a felony, and to disorderly conduct and hit and run, both misdemeanors.

Approving the terms of the agreement, Judge Samuel E. Campbell sentenced Narron to five years for the felony and 12 months for each misdemeanor charge, but the judge suspended all of the jail time. Narron, who has spent about 11 months in jail, was expected to be released today.

Also today, three co-defendants entered pleas to misdemeanor charges of disorderly conduct and failure to report an accident. Each was convicted and told the charges would be dismissed after one year if the defendants remain on good behavior.

Those defendants are Damon J. Silvestro of Colonial Heights and Eric B. Harris and Thomas W. McCall, both of Hopewell.

After today’s proceedings, the victim in the case, Rudolph Ellis, 54, criticized the plea agreement for Narron, saying, “I was running for my life. That young man tried to kill me. This whole thing is a joke.”

Ellis also excoriated the Hopewell Police Department, saying they refused to pursue an investigation and that officers had harassed him.

Hopewell Commonwealth’s Attorney Rick Newman said after the hearing that he turned over the investigation to Virginia State Police because “the police department didn’t do anything.”

Two Sex Offenders Now Homeless in Mason County

Normally I would ignore this story but this one contains a very important element, first the words of the story:

6-8-2008 Washington:

... The second homeless sex offender is 20-year-old _____. ___ also recently become homeless/transient in Mason County and is required to register after pleading guilty to Child Molestation 1st Degree in 2005.

He has been assessed by the Sheriff’s Office as a Level 1 Sex Offender but due to his homeless status, ______ is now considered a high risk to re-offend and that assessment has been raised to Level 3.

-There isn't any professional research in the world that declares "homeless persons" as high risk to reoffend, this is a arbitrary and capricious decision by the Sheriff's office. This is a vindictive move on the part of the Sheriff and the ACLU needs to step in taking the Sheriff to court.

_______ is described as a white male, five-foot-eight, 140 pounds, with brown hair and blue eyes.

_____ has given his status as: “Transient/Homeless within Mason County.” ..News Source.. by Dedrick Allan

Cops Indicted For Vigilante Handling Of Halloween Prankster

Anyone other than these two police that would apprehend a 14 year old, take him somewhere else and tell him to strip, would be hung as a sex offender for the rest of their lives, but not these police! So, sex crime or not, love to hear your opinions, post comments.

3-4-2008 New York:

STATEN ISLAND—Two Staten Island police officers from the 120th precinct have been indicted on 33 counts for allegedly dumping a black Halloween prankster in a swamp and then imposing their own form of discipline.

Officers Richard Danese and Thomas Elliassen, both 28, had been arrested in early November, charged with misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child and second degree unlawful imprisonment.

The two cops will be arraigned Tuesday on a 33-count indictment handed up Monday, the most serious charge being unlawful imprisonment, a felony which could send both of them to prison for up to four years.

After Danese and Elliassen were told by another police officer that 14-year-old Rayshawn Moreno had been throwing eggs at police cars on Halloween night, they allegedly put the teen in their patrol car, drove him several miles into another precinct, stripped him to his boxer shorts, beat him and left him in a Staten Island swamp.

After the patrol car left, Moreno, a freshman at Port Richmond High School, gathered up his clothes and walked to a nearby mall where he asked a security guard to call his relatives for help.

The officers, both of whom have been with the police department for three years, told their supervisors that they were only trying to scare him and had turned around to find him only minutes after they had left him.

Both officers have been suspended without pay since their arrest and relieved of their guns and badges. ..more.. by North Country Gazette

Not in My Bus Stop

11-30-2006 Florida:

The new fad cities can't seem to resist — keeping sex offenders out of every nook and cranny.

Last year, after the gruesome murder of Jessica Lunsford by a convicted sex offender, the City of Miami Beach decided to do something revolutionary. Even though Florida law already prohibited registered sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of places where children congregate, Miami Beach decided to make it illegal for any registered sex offender to live within 2,500 feet — nearly half a mile — of any school, day care center, public school bus stop, park, or playground within city limits.

It was the biggest buffer zone ever required between sex offenders and children, but soon almost every municipality in South Florida, including most independent cities in Broward County, followed suit. Today, only a handful of Broward cities, including Fort Lauderdale and Hollywood, don't have similar ordinances.

And that means that if you take out a marker and draw 2,500-foot circles around every park, school, and bus stop in a city like Weston or Tamarac that has such an ordinance and then color all those circles in, you're left with a map that is almost entirely inked out.

For someone like Thomas Lacorazza, that means it's incredibly difficult to find a place to live.

The 23-year-old registered sexual offender from Weston recently became the first offender in Broward County to resist a residence restriction. In 2002, when Lacorazza was 18, he and his 13-year-old girlfriend of six months had sex. Soon afterward, Lacorazza thought she might be cheating on him.

"Since I was friends with her parents," he says now, "I thought that if I told her parents that we'd had sex, they'd stop her."

'I've Been Treated Like A Monster'

4-16-2003 Washington:

ISLAND COUNTY - "People do think I'm a monster and I've been treated like a monster."

And this week, John Michael Isley's "monster" mug shot has been published throughout Island County. By law, a county must publish the name and photo of a dangerous registered sex offender when he plans to live there. Isley spoke exclusively with KOMO 4 News claiming it's a law that's "railroaded" him out of Island County.

Eleven years ago, when he was 15, he had sexual contact with a 13-year-old female cousin. He was charged with Indecent Liberties which means unwanted sexual contact but not sexual intercourse. After serving 52 weeks in a juvenile facility he has been considered, for a decade, a Level 1 sex offender, the least likely to re-offend.

But Island County decided this week, when it was learned Isley was moving to Oak Harbor, that the county considers him a Level 3 sex offender, the most dangerous level indicating a high potential to re-offend. By law, his picture and the street where he was planning to live were published.

"When I registered, the island railroaded me and sent me away," said Isley. He says the sudden change got him fired from the construction job he'd been commuting to for three weeks on Whidbey Island. "To go and change someone's level just to make sure they don't come to their island is not right," said Isley.

As the sheriff reads the law it is something he can do.

Deltona's sex-offender strategy: Drop by often

9-2-2005 Florida:

.DELTONA -- He doesn't know when, but he knows the knock is coming. Each week, on a different day and at a different time, Jeff Tillotson will hear a thump on his door from Deputy Holly Colon. She wants to know that he's where he's supposed to be and whether he's having any problems. Because he is a registered sex offender, Tillotson will hear a deputy's knock each week for as long as he lives in Deltona -- even after his probation is over.

Nowhere else in Central Florida are sex offenders checked so frequently. While cities across the state are putting more restrictions on where sex offenders live in the aftermath of the deaths of two young girls, authorities are taking a more active approach in Volusia County's largest city.

The Sheriff's Office now makes weekly checks on each of the city's 105 registered offenders and predators and about 45 others in the unincorporated areas surrounding the city. ..more.. : by Kristen Reed | Sentinel Staff Writer