MySpace sex offender crackdown is a start

What this means is not exactly clear to me. As a private investigator I have been chasing the activities of a criminal in Utah that is on the states sex offenders’ web site for possession of child pornography. Last year alone he was arrested2 times for failure to register as a sex offender.

He had a Myspace profile that was filled with many lies about him self and of course the profiles of minor female “friends”. Some of these friends left enough information on their profiles that I was able to track them down and warn the authorities. Myspace deleted the “predators” website immediately upon my warning to them. Guess what? He now has 2 Myspace profiles in spite of me and a reporter warning them.

What does this mean? It means that kids, who have a right to communicate without fear, need to always be looking over their shoulder in spite of the public face that Myspace puts up to shield the stock holders from scrutiny.

It also means that these “predators” have a compulsion that is not to be denied them even if faced with a public outing.

Question to John Brewington:

1. What was the sex offender's original crime?
2. Was the sex offender on parole or probation, or was he clear of the correctional system with only the requirement to register?
3. Why wasn't the sex offender re-arrested for initiating contact through MySpace?
4. Were the conditions to avoid registration, in your opinion, more to avoid community exposure, or to avoid residency restrictions (i.e., no way of affording a place in a legal zone)?
5. Other than pedophilia, was the sex offender mentally disturbed in other ways?

To be frank, if the offender has inappropriately corresponded with children in MySpace, his parole should be revoked and he should be sent back to prison. On registration issues, I would have to submit that if it was his inability to obtain housing in areas where he's financially able to reside, then the State has some liability in this particular instance. Indeed, in some parts of the country it is illegal for a sex offender to be homeless, which may not be his entire doing. (And no, you CAN'T say his original crime got him into this predicament, because that crime was paid for at the end of his court ordered criminal sentence). Finally, it sounds as if the offender was a bit touched in the head with issues not related to pedophilia. In this case, there should have been an assessment to that effect while he was in prison, but that's another story.

In my opinion, the laws against sex offenders are becoming more irrational. We have been focusing on harsher punishments, particularly after the sentence is served, rather than focusing on the OVERALL goal, which is to prevent child molestation and solicitation.

Here is the problem as I see it.

When a non-sex offender criminal is sentenced, he is sentenced for a specific time period. In most cases, part of his sentence period is spent as parole. Parole, in my opinion, is just as important as time spent behind bars, as (in a perfect world) parole would help the offender re-integrate into society, ideally becoming a fully productive citizen by the time his sentence is finished.

However, with various sex offender laws such as residency restrictions, buffer zones, GPS montioring, and Internet usage bans, rehabilitation and reintegration are actually PROHIBITED, not encouraged. With this type of mindset, it doesn't really mean a hill of beans whether the offender is actually repentant of his crimes, or is someone who doesn't care (perhaps like the offender in John's experience above). We as a society demand that they serve their full time, then when it's time for them to get out, we refuse to believe that they will act any differently than before their incarceration. Indeed, politicians talk about their presence in the community as if they were CURRENT convicts who should be behind bars, rather than as FORMER convicts who have served their time.

For a sentence to be truly effective, though, we need to start migrating away from our current single-time-period method, and instead incorporate a two-phase, two specific time period approaches.

The first phase would essentially be called the "punishment" phase. This phase is a specified time period in which the convict must spend a set amount of time with no parole. No "good behavior" or other forms of inducements, this is the real time that society should demand that an offender spend behind bars. Certainly, most sex offenses nowadays are being mandated that most or all of the time be served, or at least the trend is heading in that direction.

However, just as important as the punishment phase is the community "reintegration" phase. Note I don't say "rehabilitation phase", because rehabilitation would necessarily have to encompass both punishment and reintegration to be effective.

For most convicts who are NOT sex offenders, reintegration is not usually a problem for those offenders who WANT to rejoin lawful society. If a convict is truly repentant, had "learned their lesson" and "paid their debt to society", then current society is, in general, very forgiving. Of course, some options remain unavailable to all felons, but at least they aren't shut out of society in general, and certainly not on a registry.

Please note: Punishment, acceptance of rehabilitation, and finally reintegration into society are the three main components of such a criminal justice policy.

We praise citizens who, after committing a crime and spending time in jail, lead a crime-free life starting a business, mentoring children, etc; in general, showing the world that redemption for certain individuals can be attained.

However, as currently set up in most of the US, it is virtually impossible for sex offenders to reintegrate into society. With such roadblocks, society is essentially saying that they don't want to deal with the sex offender problem in the first place.

I've been long-winded, but I wanted to provide some points that have been sorely omitted from most of the sex offender debates. Most offenders can, and do, have their behavior changed upon conviction and rehabilitation with a well-qualified therapeutic process. As the laws become more and more intense, I would hope that communities would at least consider the actual level of threat a registered sex offender actually represents, as opposed to arbitrarily coming up with laws that will soon be judged unconstitutional.

To answer the question above I submit this link that leads to the full story:

http://www.slweekly.com/article.cfm/conmancom

where can we find the actual list of sex offenders on myspace; so we can spread the news about these people?

Jessica,

I don't know there is an answer to that. As you can see from media sources, Myspace did not wan to do this but was been reconsidered at the request of authorities. I have no reason to think they will provide that list to the general public. The state sex offender websites are designed to let the public know there where the offenders are not as a form of punisment.

Much of my time is spent educating the public to use common sense when dealing with people. Many counties have on line records that can be accessed by the public to see what "issues" might be out there.

This is complicated. Sex offenders have rights too. No doubt companies like Myspace do not want the liability from lawsuits by the ACLU or other organizations.

Find the preditors in your neighborhood at http://www.registeredoffenderslist.org/ I found this site and was blown away. These perverts are everywhere not just on myspace and you can find them and all you need is a zipcode.

He needed to be in jail from the time he created a MySpace account.

http://pervpatrol.com

Pervpatrol,

I don't know that I disagree with you. I attended his
arraignment and it is heading for trial. The county attorney seems to be steadfast in not accepting any plea deals. There are some other little issues that will come out but even at this moment he has a Myspace account though has changed it recently. I suppose he has a rite to network with a social group of your peers but hey, isn’t that prison is for?

John F Brewington PI
JFB Acquisitions, LLC
602-490-0676

John F Brewington is more of a rip-off con artist than a private investigator according to my findings. Apparently, he is very found of tooting his own horn using just this kind of forum. Check out this link http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/233/RipOff0233373.htm

Or you could go to the below link to understand some of the issues of The Rip Off Report. The close connection between Robert Paisola and Edward Magedson should not go unnoticed.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-02-01/news/the-real-rip-off-report/

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-02-01/news/the-real-rip-off-report/

This is a much better link to figure this out. It should not be missed that Robert Paisola and Edward Magedson are acquainted.

Ok so I went to the web sites. Looks like John F Brewington has busted a couple of scammers that claim to be consumer advocates. Not only are Robert Paisola and Edward Magedson acquaintances they both have extensive public record and are the subject of many web sites outing them. I have to wonder what else they have in common. No wonder they’re mad. They’ve been caught!

John Brewington,

I spent the last 2 hours trying to read up on these people. I see that Robert Paisola tries to sell this "Corporate Advocacy Program" for Ripoff Report from his website? Ed Magedson was in turn, using Robert Paisola as reference?

Behind the scenes Ed Magedson is being sued by dozens of companies under RICO (extortion) and Robert Paisola is lurking around on my space (while listed as a sex offender). Thats a parents worst nightmare.

These 2 men are 50 kinds of creepy. Nothing is as it appears online, even when it comes to people who present themselves as consumer advocates. I think it gives new meaning to the term "proceed with caution".