Kiddush HaShem requires that we also deal properly with the evil that Jews sometimes do

Somone just sent me the following guest post. It clearly expresses that being a proper servant of HaShem requires understanding the collective nature of the Jewish people and the need to uproot evil from our midst. Just as we clearly celebrate the good we do as Jews - we need to condemn and criticize the bad. Failure to be concerned with publicizing the negative because of fears of chilul HaShem or degrading talmidei chachomim - results in the disaster described in the post.

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In שמואל בּ פּרק כ״א, it describes a famine in Dovid HaMelech time. After 3 years he consulted the אורים ותומים and was advised that the famine was a punishment for Shaul HaMelech (deceased) killing Givonim many years earlier. So Dovid HaMelech approached the king of the Givonim and asked how he can appease them, and the response was "we want to kill 7 of Shaul's descendants as retribution". So 7 family members were handed over, they were killed and hung on a tree for 7 months, and subsequently the famine ended.

Two questions arise: 1) why was the whole בּני ישׂראל punished for one persons crime and had to endure a famine? and 2) Shaul HaMelech was long deceased so why rehash old stories and bring to the worlds attention problems the Jews had in the past and punish them creating a חילול השׁם?

Answers: The Abarbanel (and it appears also the Malbim) comment that the reason the Jews were collectively punished was because they didn't protest Shaul HaMelech's actions of killing the Givonim. Regardless that he was the Melech, Godol, Daas Torah (all the above combined in one) you do not blindly listen especially if they're making a mistake. And to the contrary, you have a responsibility to protest these actions.

The second question is answered by the Gemora Yevamos (78B and 79A) (Rashi ד״ה ואל יתחלל שׁם שׁמים), that a חילול השׁם was caused among the non-Jews as they saw Jews can commit crimes and escape unpunished. But after killing the 7 descendants as retribution and hanging them on a tree for 7 months, people asked who they were and were told that they are of royalty and how Jews treat crime seriously regardless of the perpetrator's background. This created a massive קידושׁ השׁם and 150,000 people converted to Yiddishkeit in that period.

We learn from here that whether covering up child abuse crimes or any other crimes or assisting perpetrators to evade justice, this is a חילול השׁם. The חילול השׁם isn't the public court case where the culprit is on trial for their crimes, but rather Jews assisting criminals in evading justice. And to the contrary, the קידושׁ השׁם is when the world observes Jews treating crime seriously using the justice system appropriately.

Brandon Vandenberg (Former Vanderbilt football player) again convicted of rape

CBS News   A Nashville jury has found a former Vanderbilt football player guilty on all charges for his role in the rape of an unconscious woman he'd been dating.

It took the jury just over four hours to find 23-year-old Brandon Vandenburgguilty of five counts of aggravated rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of unlawful photography.

CBS affiliate WTVF reported the verdict was reached nearly three years to the day of the assault, which rocked one of the nation's most prestigious universities.

The guilty verdict came after six days of grueling, graphic and emotional testimony -- most centering around the early morning hours of June 23, 2013, the day an unconscious female student from the dance team was sexually assaulted by several football players inside of a dorm room on the Vanderbilt campus.

Jurors had to decide whether to find Vandenburg guilty for things other men were accused of doing to the female student. His defense maintained he was drunk and should not be held responsible for what the others did. But prosecutors argued that he encouraged the rape and was part of it.

"Within two minutes of getting in that room, Mr. Vandenburg is directing someone what to do with a bottle that is in the victim," Assistant District Attorney Jan Norman said during closing arguments on Saturday morning.

"He brought her there, he served her up to three strangers; for whatever reason, it doesn't matter, it's that he did it," Norman added.

Before ending her closing arguments, Norman played the 49 second video clip Vandenburg shot on his iPhone, showing the victim being raped.

"Mr. Vandenburg got enjoyment out of it while it was happening, that enjoyment he got at that moment that is him benefiting from his actions," she added.

Yoel Oberlander (Convicted Sex Offender) Allegedly Abuses Sleeping Woman on El Al Flight From Tel Aviv to Newark

Haaretz   Yoel Oberlander, 35, was convicted of assaulting an 11-year-old girl in 2002. On the overnight flight, he is accused of repeatedly touching the woman sitting next to him without her consent.

According to the indictment, Yoel Oberlander, a 35-year-old from Monsey who was convicted in 2002 of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl, was seating at the window seat next to the woman and her mother. Oberlander allegedly started touching the woman after dinner was served and the lights were dimmed. He allegedly placed his hands over the woman's thigh, and took it away after she moved. [...]

Oberlander was charged by federal prosecutors with abusive sexual contact on an airplane in a New Jersey court.  He faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted. [...]

23 things Donald Trump has said that would have doomed another candidate

Washington Post

Donald Trump has, as of Thursday, been running for president for a year. It's been ... quite a year. Literally within the first five minutes of his speech announcing his candidacy, Trump declared that illegal immigrants from Mexico were rapists and drug dealers — the sort of comment that, for another candidate, would probably be disqualifying and ended his or her campaign before it really began.

For Trump, it wasn't. In fact, one could argue that the comment made his campaign — or at least set the tone for it; the ensuing fight with Univision sparked the flood of media attention that allowed Trump to crowd his 16 opponents off the airwaves.

Over the next 365 days, Trump said so many things that would have stumbled or destroyed other candidates that we tend to forget them. Remember when he got in a fight with the pope? Trump got in a fight with the pope. Then he went on to win the Republican nomination.

We did our best to collect every comment offered by Trump that, for a normal candidate, might well have been deadly. In doing so, we developed a "how deadly this would be to normal candidates" scale, expressed in a measure we call a "Jeb." How many normal, milquetoast Republican candidates out of 10 would have been doomed by that thing Trump said? A 1-Jeb comment may have taken out an already-weak candidate, but would probably be survivable by most. A 10-Jebber? Impossible to survive — for a mere mortal.[...]

So, buckle up. Marvel at the things Trump has gotten away with that another candidate would have had to spend weeks rebutting. If you're a candidate reading this at home: We cannot recommend the "say any old thing as frequently as possible" strategy for everyone.

1. Calls Mexican immigrants rapists

2. Says John McCain isn't a hero

3. Refers to Megyn Kelly's menstruation

4. Insults Carly Fiorina's looks

5. Says voters don't care about policy issues

6. Gets his military advice from news shows

7. Suggests 9/11 was George W. Bush's fault

8. Calls Iowa voters stupid

9. Says Muslims in New Jersey celebrated 9/11

10. Mocks a disabled reporter

11. Says Muslim migration should be banned

12. Doesn't know about the nuclear triad

13. Encourages rally violence, part I

14. Repeats a vulgar insult of Ted Cruz

15. Calls the pope "disgraceful"

16. Encourages rally violence, part II

17. Threatens to unwind the First Amendment

18. Declines to disavow racists

19. Refers to a certain part of his anatomy

20. Dismisses his campaign manager's grabbing a reporter

21. Blames the Internet for an unfounded allegation he made

22. Declares that women who have illegal abortions should be punished

23. Accuses a judge of being motivated by race

[Click above link for full article]

Florida Deputy Facing Child Sex Charges Fatally Shoots Self

ABC News   Florida sheriff's officials say a deputy facing 29 child sex-related charges has died after shooting himself.

Broward County Sheriff's spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright said in a news release that 43-year-old Sgt. Kreg Costa died Wednesday night at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale. She says Costa shot himself at his home in Sunrise after being released from jail on bond earlier Wednesday.

Investigators say staff at Costa's office noticed he was staying in his office during the night. A check into his computer showed he was viewing websites dedicated to hardcore pornography, incest and bondage while at work.

Authorities also say he exchanged sexually explicit emails and videos with a 16-year-old girl. [...]

Since all military roles including combat are open to women - they should be drafted like men

NY Times   In the latest and perhaps decisive battle over the role of women in the military, Congress is embroiled in an increasingly intense debate over whether they should have to register for the draft when they turn 18.

On Tuesday, the Senate approved an expansive military policy bill that would for the first time require young women to register for the draft. The shift, while fiercely opposed by some conservative lawmakers and interest groups, had surprisingly broad support among Republican leaders and women in both parties.

The United States has not used the draft since 1973 during the Vietnam War. But the impact of such a shift, reflecting the evolving role of women in the armed services, would likely be profound.

Under the Senate bill passed on Tuesday, women turning 18 on or after Jan. 1, 2018, would be forced to register for Selective Service, as men must do now. Failure to register could result in the loss of various forms of federal aid, including Pell grants, a penalty that men already face. Because the policy would not apply to women who turned 18 before 2018, it would not affect current aid arrangements.

“The fact is,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, “every single leader in this country, both men and women, members of the military leadership, believe that it’s fair since we opened up all aspects of the military to women that they would also be registering for Selective Services.”

The Supreme Court ruled in 1981 that women did not have to register for the draft, noting that they should not face the same requirements as men because they did not participate on the front lines of combat. But since Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said in December that the Pentagon would open all combat jobs to women, military officials have told Congress that women should also sign up for the draft.

“It’s my personal view,” Gen. Robert B. Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, that with the complete lifting of the ban on women in combat roles, “every American who’s physically qualified should register for the draft.”[...]

The debate will now pit the Senate against the House, where the policy change has support but was not included in that chamber’s version of the bill. [...]

Military experts say that even if the efforts to compel women to enlist fails in Congress, the issue is not going away.

“I think the change is inevitable,” said Nora Bensahel, a military policy analyst at American University’s School of International Service, “whether in this debate or through the courts. It just seems that now that you have women allowed to serve in any position in the military, there is no logical basis to say women should not be drafted.”

Conservative groups, which threatened to target senators who voted for the policy bill, reacted with anger on Tuesday to the bill’s passage. “Allowing our daughters to be forced into combat if there is a draft is a clear example of Washington placing more value on liberal social engineering than military objectives and preparedness,” one such group, Heritage Action for America, said in a news release.

The Senate is expected to hold its ground as conservative members defend the status quo. Mr. McCain, whose family has a long and storied history in the military and whose daughter-in-law is a captain in the Air Force Reserve, said to Mr. Cruz on the Senate floor: “I respect the senator from Texas’s view. Too bad that view is not shared by our military leadership, the ones who have had the experience in combat with women.”

Do child molesters have a high recidivism rate? Yes and No

Australian Institute of Criminology - Australian Government Publication

Two contrasting arguments have been made about child sex offenders’ proclivity to reoffend. In public and media discourse, child sex offenders are often constructed as compulsive recidivists who are virtually certain to reoffend. For example, in a second reading speech to the Legislative Council of South Australia about the Criminal Law (Sentencing) (Mandatory Imprisonment of Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill, one Parliamentarian described child sex offenders as ‘beings of a subhuman category...[they are]...the least rehabilitatable people’ (Bressington 2010).

Conversely, in the criminological literature, the opposite is often posited—that child sex offenders have low rates of recidivism compared with other types of offenders (see eg McSherry & Keyzer 2009; Minnesota Department of Corrections 2007).

It is certainly the case that many studies of child sex offenders have found low levels of recidivism (Doren 1998). Measuring sexual recidivism is, however, a challenging task (see Falshaw, Friendship &Bates 2003 for a discussion) and it is important to be aware of the limitations of these studies. There are a number of key decisions that researchers make when measuring the recidivism of child sex offenders that can impact the findings of studies. Two key decisions are the definition of recidivism and the period of time over which recidivism is measured.

In most studies of general reoffending, recidivism is defined as a reconviction for a new offence. As sexual offences are often not reported (Abel et al. 1987; Bates, Saunders & Wilson 2007) and sexual offending against children has one of the highest rates of attrition of any offence (ie a relatively small proportion of cases progresses successfully through the criminal justice system; Eastwood, Kift & Grace 2006), studies of child sex offender recidivism that rely on reconvictions as a measure of recidivism provide only ‘a diluted measure of true reoffense rates’ (Doren 1998: 99).

As a result, some studies of child sex offender recidivism have defined recidivism as an arrest or charge (rather than a conviction) for a new sexual offence. This approach is also limited, but is likely to provide a more accurate measure of recidivism than reconvictions. As Doren (1998: 101) argues

although some portion of the people charged with a new sexual crime may [have] been both innocent of that charge and of any other recidivating sexually predatory acts, this portion would likely be far smaller than the number of re-offenders who are never caught and charged.

For a variety of reasons, recidivism studies usually follow up offenders over a short period, such as two or three years. While this is often necessary due to time and budget constraints, the longer a period over which recidivism in measured, the higher the rate of recidivism is likely to be (Tresidder, Homel & Payne 2009). While child sex offender studies often show low levels of recidivism, Salter (2003) argues that these studies obscure the reality that in the long term, rates of recidivism can be much higher (see also Bates, Saunders & Wilson 2007).

Studies that narrowly define recidivism and use short follow-up periods may therefore underestimate the rate of recidivism of child sex offenders (Moulden et al. 2009). Prentky et al.’s (cited in Doren 1998) study of recidivism rates among extrafamilial child sex offenders over a 25 year period used a new charge for a sex offence as the measure of recidivism. This study found that 52 percent of child sex offenders reoffended during the 25 year at-risk period. As Doren (1998: 101) argues, however, due to the limitations of recidivism studies on child sex offenders described above

 the 52% recidivist figure should be considered as a conservative approximation of the true base rate for sex offense recidivism in previously convicted child molesters...[it]...represents the lowest approximation for extrafamilial child molester sexual recidivism.

As described above, the category of ‘child sex offender’ includes diverse offenders with diverse motivations, including those who meet the diagnostic criteria for paedophilia. It is important to recognise that within the broad offender category of child sex offenders, some subcategories of offenders are likely to be at greater risk of reoffending than others. As Petrunik and Deutschmann (2008: 500) argue:

some sex offenders—notably, extrafamilial offenders with male victims who meet clinical criteria for paraphilias, such as paedophilia or exhibitionism—do offend with high frequency over long periods.

Research by Prentky et al. (cited in Doren 1998) described above, measured the recidivism of extrafamilial child sex offenders. As discussed in more detail below, research shows that extrafamilial child sex offenders perpetrate offences against many more victims than intrafamilial offenders and should therefore not be considered representative of all child sex offenders.

The empirical literature therefore suggests that both the media’s insistence that child sex offenders are compulsive recidivists and criminologists’ counterargument that child sex offenders are unlikely to reoffend may be somewhat skewed. While better quality evidence is required on the question of child sex offender recidivism, the existing research literature indicates that some subgroups of child sex offenders have higher rates of recidivism than others. For example, those who offend against children in their own families have access to only a small number of children, thereby limiting opportunities for recidivism to occur. The competing claims outlined at the opening of this section—ie that all child sex offenders will reoffend/that there is a low recidivism rate among child sex offenders—may not be as mutually exclusive as they appear. The research literature indicates that among a subset of child sex offenders—those who target male victims outside of their family—reoffending in the long term is likely and far more likely than for child sex offenders who target female and/or family member victims.

Ignoring danger signs can be fatal: Alligator snatches toddler in front of parents at Disney resort

USA Today    A desperate search is underway for a 2-year-old boy who was snatched by an alligator while wading in a lake at a Disney World resort hotel Tuesday night, law enforcement officials said. [...]

The boy was playing in about a foot of water in a beach area with his father when he was taken by an alligator that witnesses described as anywhere from four to seven feet in length.

"The father entered the water and he tried to grab the child, but was not successful in doing so," Demings said. The mother rushed into the water to try and help the father wrestle the boy from the alligator. When the frantic couple was unable to pull their son to safety, they cried for help and a nearby lifeguard called 911.[...]

There are posted signs warning guests against swimming in the lake, according to Demings.

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A similar disregard for posted danger signs happened with a group of frum kids supervised by 2 adults walking along a stretch of dangerous beach in England. They passed and ignored 9 warning signs and consequently endangered their lives from an incoming tide that would have washed them out to sea.

The Guardian  More than 30 teenagers trapped by the rising tide on a treacherous rocky shore when a coastal walk went dangerously wrong were rescued by helicopter and lifeboats after using their mobile phone torches as distress beacons.

The 34 boys, aged between 13 and 14 and accompanied by two adults, got stranded after descending from the coastal path between St Margaret’s Bay and Dover harbour during the trip organised by the Ahvas Yisroel community centre in Stamford Hill, north London, on Monday.[...]

The coastguard launched an air and sea search involving a helicopter based at Lydd, Dover RNLI lifeboat, two inshore Walmer RNLI lifeboats and Langdon coastguard team.

A team of volunteers from the Stamford Hill Shomrim volunteer guard, the Jewish neighbourhood watch organisation, also rushed to Dover to assist with the search after one of those stranded alerted it to the group’s plight at about 9pm.

All were finally rescued by 11pm from three locations, as the group had split up, and were strung out along one mile of coastline. Thirty-one were rescued by lifeboat, while five, who were on nearby rocks shouting for help, were taken by helicopter. None required hospital treatment. [...]

Mark Finnis, Dover RNLI coxswain, said the group had been in great danger. “From what I can make out, they walked along the top of the cliff to St Margaret’s Bay from Dover. Once they got to St Margaret’s Bay, I’m understanding, they thought they would take a short cut back long the rocky shoreline.

“It is very inhospitable. We are not talking about little rocks, There are some pretty hefty boulders down there. They weren’t dressed for it at all, didn’t have the correct footwear,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Less than two hours later, they would have been swimming, because the tide is rising all the time. They were cut off by the tide. There is no footpath in this particular stretch of shoreline. It is purely a rocky walk.” [...]

He said the group were in high spirits and had not seemed to appreciate the danger they were in, which was spelled out to them when they got back to Dover. The RNLI said the group had walked past nine signs warning them not to continue. 

A spokesman for the community centre said a full investigation into the incident would be held so that lessons could be learned, and praised the coastguard and RNLI. The boys were being supervised by two community centre staff at the time. [...]

Andy Roberts, Launching Authority at Dover lifeboat station, said “everything was thrown” at this rescue. “If we hadn’t got there in time, it could have been a different story. It could have been a tragedy. It is a 300ft cliff, and the signal can be bad.

“If the phones hadn’t worked, we wouldn’t have known they were there. There are no passing ships, or people on the clifftop, not at that time of night. The majority of them didn’t realise the implications of what could have happened.”

He added: “The group were spread out over a mile. They should have stayed together. It is a lot easier searching for 36 people grouped together than separated.” [...]

Admit It: These Terrorists Are Muslims

The Daily Beast

There’s a lot of special pleading about Orlando from Muslims and liberals. It’s time to do away with that. If not, we give the issue away to Trump.

The atrocious attack in Orlando, Florida, was an act of ISIS-inspired jihadist terrorism that targeted gays. It must concern us all.

Before any of our assumed multiple identities, we are human beings first and foremost. You don’t have to be black to condemn racism, nor Jewish to condemn anti-Semitism, nor Muslim to condemn anti-Muslim bigotry, and you certainly don’t have to be gay to condemn the evil that just descended upon Orlando.

A puerile response by some of my fellow Muslims is to ask “why should we apologize for something that has nothing to do with us.” But this entirely misses the point.

Just as we Muslims expect solidarity from wider society against anti-Muslim bigotry and racism, likewise we must reciprocate solidarity toward victims of Islamist extremism. Just as we encourage others to actively denounce racism wherever they see it, so too must we actively denounce Islamist theocratic views wherever we find them.

Enough with the special pleading. Enough with the denial. Enough with the obfuscation.

The killer of Orlando was a homophobic Muslim extremist, inspired by an ideological take on my own religion, Islam. In just the first seven days of this holy month of Ramadan, various jihadists have carried out attacks in Tel Aviv, Baghdad, Damascus, Idlib, Beirut, Orlando, and now Paris.

This global jihadist insurgency threatens every corner of the world and has killed more Muslims than members any other faith. So why pretend it does not exist? Why shy away from calling it by name?

So far do many of us liberals go in denying the problem, that we’re happy to stigmatize other vulnerable minorities in the process. “He was not a Muslim, he was nothing but a mad lunatic,” we cry in exasperation. As if those with mental health issues are somehow automatically predisposed to murder, or immune to manipulation and exploitation by cynical Islamists and jihadists.

So far do many of us liberals go in denying the problem, that we’re happy to stigmatize other vulnerable minorities in the process. “He was not a Muslim, he was nothing but a mad lunatic,” we cry in exasperation. As if those with mental health issues are somehow automatically predisposed to murder, or immune to manipulation and exploitation by cynical Islamists and jihadists.

Then there’s that other old tactic to try and avoid discussing the Islamist ideology. “He wasn’t from the Muslim community,” we proclaim. “He was acting in isolation, a lone wolf.” [...]

It is time that we liberals took the fabled red pill and accepted reality. Just as this clearly has something to do with outdated gun laws, and just as those laws need reform, this also has something to do with Islam, which also needs reform today. No other stance makes any sense. [...]

Liberals who claim that this has nothing to do with Islam today are being as unhelpful and as ignorant as conservatives who claim that this represents all of Islam. The problem so obviously has something to do with Islam. That something is Islamism, or the desire to impose any version of Islam over any society. Jihadism is the attempt to do so by force. This ideology of Islamism has been rising almost unchecked among Muslims for decades. It is a theocratic ideology, and theocracy should no longer have any place in the world today.

But it is as if we liberals will stoop to anything to avoid discussing ideology. We will initiate state sanctioned presidential kill lists and launch unaccountable targeted assassinations. Yet, no amount of drone strikes under Obama—at a rate that far exceeds Bush—will ever solve the problem. We cannot shoot our way out of an ideology. We cannot arrest our way out of an insurgency. Yes, law and war have their own place, but they will never solve the problem.

In the long run, only reducing the local appeal of this ideology will solve the problem. Whereas Islam today requires reform, the Islamist ideology must be intellectually terminated. To do so requires first acknowledging it exists, isolating it from Muslims, devising a strategy to challenge it, and then backing the voices that do. [...]

So this is my appeal to President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and to all liberals and Muslims, for humanity’s sake let’s stop playing politics with evil. Just as this so obviously has something to do with lax gun laws, it so clearly has something to do with Islam. Hillary Clinton nearly conceded as much after these recent attacks. But liberals must own this debate, not merely appear to be defensively reacting to Trump’s agenda.

This September will mark 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, and we still haven’t devised a strategy to address Islamist extremism, let alone identified voices who can do so globally. Not al Qaeda, not ISIS, nor any other theocratic jihadist group that may emerge in the future, but a strategy that recognizes we are in the middle of a Cold War against theocracy. If we refuse to isolate, name and shame Islamist extremism, from fear of increasing anti-Muslim bigotry, we only increase anti-Muslim bigotry. If the rise of Trump has not convinced us of this yet, then nothing will.

When a mentally ill Muslim gay man massacres gay people in the name of ISIS - is he a homophobic Muslim terrorist or simply crazy?

Times of Israel  The gunman who massacred 49 people at the Pulse club in Orlando was himself a regular at the gay nightspot, four club-goers told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.

“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” Ty Smith told the Sentinel, referring to slain shooter Omar Mateen, 29. [...]

Another Pulse regular, Kevin West, told the Los Angeles Times that Mateen messaged him on and off for a year using a gay chat app. West also said he passed Mateen in the street on the night of the attack and they exchanged greetings.

And other club-goers told local media and MSNBC that Mateen had been using multiple gay apps, including Grindr, with mutual acquaintances to “hook up.” [...]

He was also bipolar, Yusufiy, Mateen’s ex-wife, told reporters in Boulder, Colorado.

“He was mentally unstable and mentally ill,” she said. Although records show the couple didn’t divorce for two years after the marriage, Yusiufiy said she was actually only with Mateen for four months because he was abusive. She said he would not let her speak to her family and that family members had to come and literally pull her out of his arms. [...]

Yusufiy said she was “devastated, shocked, started shaking and crying” when she heard about the shooting, but she attributed the violence to Mateen’s mental illness, not any alliance with terrorist groups.

Rahman agreed.

“My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with ISIS,” he said, using a common acronym for the Islamic State group.[...]

The rights of convicted sex offenders against harassment by community members trying to protect their children

Even though information about sex offenders is publicly available on government websites (sex registries) in America - the information can not be used to harass the convicted offenders. This is in fact stated in the sex registry itself. What constitutes harassment is a judgment call - but offenders clearly have rights which apparently contradict the need for the community to protect its children.

Area woman convicted for harassing sex offender

Northern Virginia Daily News

All she wanted to do, Delores Ann Harris told a jury Friday, was to protect herself and her granddaughter from a man who had been convicted 21 years ago of aggravated sexual battery, a man who has been on the state’s sex offender registry since 1997.

But the convicted sex offender in the courtroom was the victim in the jury trial. And Harris, 61, was the defendant, charged with misusing information from the sex offender registry.

It took the jury only 23 minutes to find Harris guilty and even less time to impose a $1,500 fine on her for actions that the prosecution described as a campaign of harassment against Scott Costello, 43.
“The commonwealth realizes that Mr. Costello is not a sympathetic victim,”Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Fleming told the six-member jury during closing arguments.

But, Fleming said, the state law is clear: The state sex offender registry, including details about Costello, can be easily viewed on a website but the information displayed must not be used “for purposes of intimidating or harassing” another person. Violations are categorized as class one misdemeanors carrying penalties of up to one year in jail and a maximum penalty of $2,500. [...]

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City Council agreed last week to pay $50,000 for discriminating against a registered sex offender.

Carbondale News

City Council agreed last week to pay $50,000 toward the settlement of a lawsuit which was filed against the city for discriminating against a registered sex offender. [...]

Three years ago, Conway and his son Patrick were removed from a residence they shared on Brooklyn St. because it was located across the street from White Bridge Playground and near the Carbondale Area elementary and high school campus.

Their eviction was prompted by Mayor Justin Taylor's discovery that Patrick had been convicted in 2009 of unlawful contact or communication with a minor, and his subsequent listing on the Megan’s Law Registry.

Under a city ordinance which was in effect at that time, registered sex offenders were prohibited from living within 2,500 feet of any facility or area where children might gather, such as a school, park or playground.

In August of 2013, Conway and his son attended a meeting of City Council, where Conway accused the mayor of targeting his son and forcing them both out of the city.

Having served as a magistrate judge in Wyoming County for 25 years before moving to Carbondale, Conway said his family name had been “defamed.”

“We were very happy here,” he recounted. “But then the mayor told me, ‘Pat has to go!’ That was it.”

Conway acknowledged that his son “did wrong,” but insisted “he wouldn’t hurt anybody.” He threatened legal action against the city, arguing that a 2011 state Supreme Court ruling had rendered the city’s ordinance unconstitutional.

A month later, in an attempt to avoid litigation, council introduced and later adopted a revised ordinance relaxing the housing restrictions on registered sex offenders like Patrick Conway who are classified as “non-violent.”< Nevertheless, Conway did file a lawsuit against the city just about a year ago, which claimed that Mayor Taylor and the city acted in a “capricious, unreasonable and discriminatory manner” in enforcing the previous ordinance. In the suit, Conway argued that his son was among 15 sex offenders who were registered under Megan’s Law and living in the city at the time of the eviction, but Patrick was the only one who was forced to move in order to comply with that ordinance.

Qatar Convicts Dutch Woman Who Reported Rape but Will Let Her Return Home

NY Times    A 22-year-old Dutch woman who was detained for three months in Qatar on suspicion of adultery after she reported being drugged and raped was given a one-year suspended sentence on Monday and will be allowed to return home, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.

The woman, identified only as Laura and described as being from the Dutch city of Utrecht, was held and prosecuted on charges of adultery and alcohol consumption. She has been fined about 750 euros, or nearly $850, and will be sent back to the Netherlands, said Daphne Kerremans, a spokeswoman for the Dutch Foreign Ministr [...]

News reports said the man Laura accused of sexually assaulting her had also been detained and had told Qatari authorities that the sex was consensual. They said the man, who has not been formally identified, had been punished with 140 lashes for illegal sex acts and public drunkenness.

The woman’s lawyer, Brian Lokollo, told the Dutch news media that the woman had gone in March to a hotel in Doha where alcohol is permitted.

She felt unwell soon after taking the first sip of a drink and realized that something was wrong, he said. The next morning, she awoke in an unfamiliar apartment and realized that she had been raped.

After reporting the attack to the authorities in Qatar, Mr. Lokollo said, she was detained, according to The Associated Press.[...]