The 25,000 sex offenders registered in New York now will have to report their online identities to the state, in a new effort to safeguard children using social networking sites. A law signed yesterday by Governor David Peterson targets sexual predators using the Internet, by including their online personas in information the are required to report.
(New York)
The state senate this week approved a proposed law that would keep misdemeanor sex offenders from getting or having a real estate license. Current state law already keeps people convicted of a felony sex offense from being licensed as a real estate broker or salesperson. Misdemeanor level sex offenses include sexual misconduct, sexual abuse in the second degree forcible touching, unlawful imprisonment in the second degree and hate crimes. The bill also requires those who now hold a real estate license in the state to report any felony or misdemeanor
Suffolk Life/George Wallace
For the second time in recent years, a New York State Assembly bill that would plug a loopholeallowing sexual predators with mental disorders to be released into a community without signingonto the sex offender registry has been approved. However, there is little chance that the billwill become state law without a legislator to sponsor a companion bill in the NYS Senate. I’mlooking to find a Senate sponsor, said Assemblywoman Pat Eddington (WF-Medford) after the bill waspassed unanimously by the Assembly. It’s an important law. A person who commits
State Senator Eric Adams charged yesterday at a press conference in Brooklyn that punishments for rapists aren’t harsh enough, and hospitals don’t do enough to help law enforcement build cases against them. Adams (D-Brooklyn) brought to the podium a woman who claimed she was drugged and date-raped last weekend at a Brooklyn bar. He said the hospital failed to test the woman for the drug, something he wants to legally mandate. He also called on stiffer sentences for rapists, raising it from a class D to a class C felony.
Legislation that would make it illegal for sexual predators to chat with minors online cleared the state Senate yesterday, as the city’s district attorneys threw their weight behind the measure. The so-called e-STOP law would make it a felony for level-three sex offenders, the highest category, to communicate online with children. It would also require pervs at all levels of the state sex offender registry to log their online addresses with the state. Social networking Web sites MySpace and FaceBook have agreed to use the new sex offender email list
Under a new law signed by Governor Eliot Spitzer, rape suspects can be forced to undergo HIV testing. The measure gives rape victims the option of forcing an indicted suspect to be tested under a court order, with the results provided to the victim and the suspect.
(Albany, New York)