Category Archive for : ‘PFML’

According to a national survey that tracks how states apply Megan’s Law, dozens of states don’t provide as much information as they can about sex offenders who are released from prisons, creating a false sense of security and placing communities in peril.  The 22 states receiving an F include New York, California, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.  They scored below 60 points in the rating system devised using the Parents for Megan’s Law survey.  New Jersey, which has 10,028 offenders and was the site of the July 1994 rape and

Kevin Cloherty, 40, pleaded guilty in 1994 to attempting to sodomize a 13 year old boy and served four years.  Now, parents in a Long Island community are standing together to get the convicted sex offender who’s living in their neighborhood off the streets and away from their kids.  The parents are handing out a CD-ROM with footage shot by an amateur teen filmmaker.  It allegedly shows Cloherty touching the biceps of teenage boys in a New Hyde Park supermarket in June.  He was not arrested for the incident.  He

Suffolk law enforcement authorities are teaming up with Parents for Megan’s Law to help people who report sexual abuse of children through a new hotline, geared to serve as a gateway to services and information to youngsters in need.  The hotline is funded by the county and state.  Suffolk police will direct people who report sexual abuse to the Suffolk County Child Sex Abuse Hotline at 631-689-2672 which will be staffed by Parents for Megan’s Law-trained child advocates.  This alliance will reduce the potential for re-traumatization, Laura Ahearn, executive director

Suffolk lawmakers yesterday unanimously approved a resolution requiring providers to check the state’s sex offender registry before hiring employees.  Day care providers are currently required to submit fingerprint tests to the state for a background check, a process that can take several months.  The bill requires day care centers that receive county funding to contact the New York State Sex Offender Registry before hiring employees or volunteers.  A provider who fails to check with the registry could lose county funding.  Nassau lawmakers are considering similar legislation.  

Yolanda Young and

As many as 7,200 sex offenders in New York, for years, have eluded the scrutiny of Megan’s Law, the measure that makes the whereabouts of sex offenders public.  They have lived in relative anonymity because a court order prevented law enforcement from releasing information about them.  The injunction also barred officials from posting information about the offenders on the state Internet-based Sex Offender Registry which is designed to help the public take steps for their own safety.  But in the coming months that court restriction will be lifted as offenders

A federal grand jury in Boston is investigating Bishop William Murphy’s role in certifying to the US Department of Veterans Affairs that a Boston priest whose file included several memos warning about the priest’s attraction to boys had no adverse information that would disqualify him as a Catholic chaplain at a California VA hospital. The probe is also examining Murphy’s handling of sex abuse incidents at the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The criminal investigation centers on the case of Rev. William Scanlan, a retired Boston priest who is living in