A mom's concern helps unearth sex offender snafu

Have you heard about the homeless colony of sex offenders living under the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami?

Scores of people convicted of sex crimes have been living there for the past two years. It's one of the few places in Dade County that isn't within 2,500 feet of a school, park or other place where children might be.

Opinion Page Editor Anne Halston read about Miami's problem, and got to thinking about where the sex offenders in her hometown of Lombard might be. She looked at the DuPage County Sheriff's Web site; there, you plug in your address and see plotted on a map the names and addresses of all child sex offenders required to register.

Initially, Anne thought there were as many as three offenders living within 500 feet of a small park in her neighborhood (the law is less restrictive in Illinois). That's when she began looking into the issue in more detail. She started with e-mails and calls to Lombard and sheriff's police.

In one conversation, Anne says, she told an officer: "One reason we bought the house across the street from a park is we knew there'd be a better chance that our daughter could walk the dog without running into a pedophile watering his lawn."

One of the offenders Anne came across was convicted of misdemeanor criminal sexual abuse (having sexual relations at age 19 with a 15-year-old). He served 30 days in jail, but was required to register as a sex offender for 10 years and abide by the residency restrictions. He lived in an apartment immediately adjacent to the park. By the time Anne was making her inquiries, he had moved to an adjoining town.

A second suspected offender was outside the boundaries, but one remains. Lombard police say they plan to ask him to move, but can't run the guy out of his house with no warning.

So, how did this come to be? As Jake Griffin chronicles on today's front page, it could best be described as a bureaucratic snafu. The park was formerly a street, which the village of Lombard leased to the Lombard Park District, which turned it into a park. The deed was not updated, and maps do not show the park. So when police made their regular checks to see if sex offenders were in compliance, this particular park didn't show up on maps.

An honest mistake, I would assume. But when you hear of one such instance, you wonder how many more out there are going undetected. Believe me, this story would have gone relatively unknown and unreported had it not been for Anne's persistence as a concerned resident - many unsupervised kids frequent the park, she says - and a newsperson.

Coincidentally, ABC 7's Chuck Goudie, who also writes a weekly column for the Daily Herald, did a little sleuthing on this very topic.

He reported Wednesday night that after just two days "of looking through public records, checking apartment buildings, knocking on doors and measuring sidewalks, numerous child sex offenders are not where they claim to be; nor are they living within the law."

The Goudie report chronicled two instances in Chicago in which sex offenders were officially listed as living within 500 feet of a school, but one wasn't even there when the TV crew checked for him. Another check found a Lake County offender who had been forced to move because of noncompliance, but now meets the letter of the law by 55 feet.

The report also noted State Rep. Darlene Senger of Naperville is working on tightening the registration loopholes, but she acknowledges simply moving sex offenders farther away from schools and such is not a cure-all.

As the scene under the Julia Tuttle Causeway can attest.

jdavis@dailyherald.com