DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGENCY-INVESTIGATION

Domestic violence agency’s CFO cashed in on paid time off

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — The chief financial officer of a nonprofit domestic violence agency says she cashed in 15 weeks of paid time off given to her two days before a recent fiscal year ended. Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence CFO Patricia Duarte told a House committee Thursday that she was awarded the 75 days of paid time off in 2018 and was told she could cash it in over the following two days or save it for a future date. She cashed it in. The coalition is under investigation for exorbitant executive compensation.

Florida officials express caution — not panic — over virus

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is reassuring his state that health officials are prepared for any cases of a new strain of coronavirus that has already killed thousands abroad. At a Thursday morning news conference, the governor said there were no confirmed infections in Florida from the virus known as COVID-19. State health officials are attempting to calm fears, but critics say state officials aren’t being forthcoming about any suspected cases in the state. Meanwhile, some colleges and universities have canceled trips abroad as precautions. A key business analyst said this week that the state should be “concerned but not panicked” about the outbreak’s threat to the Florida economy.

LARGO, Fla. (AP) — Investigators say a Florida man is accused of attacking his mother and stepsister with a knife and killing them. A man called 911 around 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday and told the dispatcher that his son was attacking two family members inside their apartment in Largo, which is near St. Petersburg,  When officers arrived at the apartment, they found one woman dead and a younger woman severely injured. She was taken to a hospital, where she later died. Police haven’t release their names. But 49-year-old Wiley Mackenzie was arrested and taken to jail. He’s charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

Charge dropped against artist who wrote on art-banana wall

WILTON MANORS, Fla. (AP) — A medical examiner has determined that Wilton Manors Mayor Justin Flippen died of a brain aneurysm. Officials say Flippen was on his way to Tuesday night’s commission meeting when police received a call for medical assistance. Officers found 41-year-old Flippen unresponsive in his vehicle. They began CPR and paramedics rushed him to a hospital, where he died. The city commission meeting began without Flippen and was abruptly adjourned a short time later. Flippen was elected mayor in 2018. He had previously served on the city commission as well. City officials say a celebration of life is being planned.

Woman in custody after body found in trunk

TITUSVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Police say the body of a Florida woman missing since last Friday was found in the trunk of a car in Tennessee and a suspect was taken into custody. A statement from police in Titusville, Florida, says investigators identified the body found Wednesday as Anna Primavere. The body was discovered by police in Lebanon, Tennessee, after the execution of a search warrant. Police say the car’s owner, 27-year-old Courtney Dawn Gibson, turned herself in on Thursday. Titusville police said they think Primavere was killed Friday and Gibson left the area Saturday and went to her parents’ home in Tennessee.

ELECTION 2020-LABOR UNION

Labor union unveils $150M campaign to help defeat Trump

AP-CRIMINAL JUSTICE-FLORIDA

Senate passes bill to give judges flexibility in drug cases

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida judges would have more flexibility in sentencing people convicted of possessing or selling small amounts of drugs under a bill passed by the Florida Senate. The Senate passed the bill Wednesday on a 39-1 vote. It would allow judges to deviate from mandatory minimum sentences in low-level drug cases if the defendant didn’t have previous drug convictions.  The defendant would also have to provide law enforcement with information and evidence about the crime itself.

UAE grants $3.5M for reef restoration in Florida Keys

KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — The government of the United Arab Emirates has granted a $3.5 million gift to help kick off a major coral reef restoration program in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The grant was announced Wednesday by officials of United Way of Collier and the Keys. It is the first funding commitment of the $100 million Mission: Iconic Reefs program announced last December by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its Keys sanctuary. The program calls for restoring seven iconic coral reef sites off the Keys. The effort is likely to take two decades.

HOUSTON COUNTY, Ga. — A recent decision from the Georgia Supreme Court is shaking up the way law enforcement tracks some sex offenders.

For years, Georgia law required lifelong electronic tracking for “sexually dangerous predators” even after they completed their sentence, including their time on probation or parole.

However, in a ruling released Monday, the state’s top court said no more.

RELATED: Lifelong monitoring of ‘sexually dangerous predators’ unconstitutional, Georgia Supreme Court rules

In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that lifelong monitoring after a completed sentence violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search.

The court reasoned that an ankle bracelet feeding location data to law enforcement constituted a never ending search.

Defense attorney Frank Hogue thought the court got it right.

“I think it’s a good decision because it holds the Fourth Amendment center to our values of privacy against government intrusion,” said Hogue.

On the law enforcement side, the response was mixed.

Lieutenant Kent Bankston with the Houston County Sheriff’s Office said those post-sentence ankle monitors were reserved for serious offenders, including those who committed crimes against children.

“When you’ve committed rape, you know, or any type of felony such as that,” said Bankston.

But he said the ruling wouldn’t keep the sheriff’s office from doing their job.

“I understand the public concern, but it’s not going to change the way we do things,” he said.

Offenders who were formerly wearing the tracker will remain on the sex offender registry and will still have to provide their address to law enforcement. Bankston said law enforcement will, in turn, continue to verify those addresses with in-person checks, as they always have.

He also noted that the “predators”–the group of sex crime offenders the Georgia Bureau of Investigation deems most dangerous–make up a very small portion of Houston County’s sex offender registry.

Of 287 people on the registry, Bankston said only five were classified as predators.

Bibb County had similar numbers. 

According to Sgt. Clay Williams, the county has 404 offenders total on the registry. Five of them are deemed predators.

Bibb County Sheriff David Davis was still angry at the ruling.

In a Facebook post, he said the ruling has ‘essentially removed the shackles from monsters in our society.’

He went on to ask legislators to find a way to bring the monitoring program back.

Hogue says a short concurring opinion shows that could be a possibility.

“(It) essentially tells the Georgia legislature ‘here’s an idea for how you can monitor these people with a GPS legally for the rest of their lives,” he said.

That idea, he said, is passing legislation that calls for lifetime probation sentences for the worst sex crime offenders. 

While on probation, the law provides them a diminished expectation of privacy. Under those circumstances, law enforcement could be able to legally track offenders with monitoring bracelets.

Halloween is today, and that got us thinking about your kid’s safety. Do you know who’s behind the doors your kids are knocking on?

We set out to verify if Bibb sex offenders report to jail on Halloween.

Just a few final touches and Nevaeh Simmons’ costume is ready for Halloween, but her mom, Nakeza, says their door is the only one she will be knocking on.

“It’s very scary. That’s why for the last three years we haven’t been out. Just trick-or-treating door-to-door,” says Nakeza.

Nakeza says she has always worried about people poisoning candy, so they have a family party on Halloween, but she says she has never thought about sex offenders posing a threat.

“I don’t have any idea where the sex offenders are,” says Nakeza.

If you are interested in seeing a map of where sex offenders live, click this link.

We reached out to Lt. Chris Harrell from the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office to see where registered sex offenders are on Halloween in Macon.

“The sex offenders that we’ll have in jail on Halloween are ones that are serving their time from violations against the registry or ones who have pending charges that are waiting to go to court,” says Harrell.

So we verified that no sex offenders in Macon do not report to jail on Halloween. The only ones in jail are already there.

Harrell says offenders on parole or probation will have to go to the probation office during the hours kids are out. As for the other registered sex offenders, he says they make an extra effort on Halloween.

“We physically go out to the work employment addresses and the residences where the sex offenders have registered with the sheriff’s office and check and make sure the information they provided with us is correct,” says Harrell.

James Hill of the Georgia Department of Community Supervision says the State Board of Pardons and Paroles allows parole officers to impose curfews and provide specific reporting instructions for sex offenders.

We reached out to other Central Georgia counties to see what their policies are.

In Baldwin County, Detective Haley Beckham says they continually check offenders addresses throughout the year, but around Halloween she says some years they check and some years they do not.

In Houston County, Cpt. John Holland says they increase the amount of check on Halloween and leading up.

“Very shocked cause that’s crazy because you wouldn’t even think about that especially for a holiday,” says Nakeza.

She says knowing that some registered sex offenders are at home on Halloween is enough to make sure her family stick to trick-or-treat alternatives.

Photos: Operation Broken Arrow arrests

A 31-year-old convicted sex offender living in Forsyth County was arrested Wednesday after he reportedly failed to notify authorities about a new job.

According to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, deputies took Jeffery Custer into custody at an area business after discovering he had been working there without notifying the sex offender unit as required.

A report from the sheriff’s office said deputies went to Custer’s registered home address on Heardsville Road, where they learned he had gotten a job last month at an area auto repair business.

Custer, who is being held at the Forsyth County Detention Center without bond, is required to register as a sex offender as a result of a 2003 conviction for sexual battery in Heard County.

The newly formed pro-active community enforcement unit at the sheriff’s office, as well as the agency’s reserve unit, have begun conducting regular visits to addresses provided by sex offenders.

As of Tuesday night, they had not found 27-year-old Curtis Joe Motes, for whom an alert was issued last week.

Motes failed last month to register as a sex offender, something he’s required to do after a 2006 conviction for child molestation in Hall County.

His last known address was 5774 Adrian Lane in Forsyth.

According to Georgia Law, any person convicted of a criminal sex offense in any state or territory must register once a year with local law enforcement, providing accurate information about where they work and live. They must also notify authorities if they move.

Forsyth has 113 sex offenders who are required to register, according to the sheriff’s office. Eighteen of those are currently in jail.

By Jerry B . . . In 2006, Defendant  Zeno committed two delinquent acts that occurred when he was age 14 and 16. Because of the nature of the two acts, his case was transferred from juvenile court to adult criminal court where he pled guilty to rape of a child, sexual assault, criminal attempt (rape), criminal attempt (incest), and indecent assault. The trial court sentenced him to an aggregate sentence of four to eight years’ incarceration followed by five years’ probation, and informed him that he would be required to register as a sex offender. In August of 2017, Zeno was found guilty of violating the terms of his probation and parole and was sentenced to 2 to 10 years of incarceration.

Zeno challenged the registration based on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Ruling in In Re J.B.,107 A.3d 1 (Pa. 2014) that “SORNA’s registration requirements improperly brand all juvenile offender’s reputations with an indelible mark of a dangerous recidivist even though the irrebuttable presumption linking adjudication of specified offenses with a high likelihood of recidivating is not ‘universally true.’ . . . The application of SORNA’s current lifetime registration requirements upon adjudication of specified offenses violates juvenile offenders’ due process rights by utilizing an irrebuttable presumption.”

The Commonwealth, however, argued that since Zeno was tried in criminal court rather than Juvenile Court, he was eligible for registration as a sex offender.

A panel of Superior Court justices disagreed with the Commonwealth and ruled that because Zeno was a juvenile when he committed the crimes, he does not have to register as a sex offender. In Re J.B. applies to him. See the decision here.

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