Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Former FIU baseball star who threw out first pitch for 2014 season is registered sex offender - FIU - MiamiHerald.com

Former FIU baseball star who threw out first pitch for 2014 season is registered sex offender - FIU - MiamiHerald.com



When actor Tim Allen was nominated for the Golden Globe or Emmy awardsfor his successful comedy series or Disney movies, did they announce himas “Convicted Drug Trafficker, Tim Allen”? Then why would the Miami Herald announce that a former FIU baseball star that was honored with throwing out the first pitch this year was charged with a crime sixteen years ago?

Many successful businessmen, athletes and celebrities have criminal pasts. They have been given the opportunity to move forward and achievethe success for which they are recognized. Why is it that ‘sex offenders’ are not given that opportunity?

Today, the Miami Herald posted a story about Dennis Wiseman throwing out the first pitch at the FIU season opener (see: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/18/3942688/former-fiu-baseball-star-who-threw.html).
Wiseman was a former star pitcher at the school. He is an avid supporter of FIU athletics. He is COO of a radiology company where he’s been continuously employed for the past 9 years. What should otherwise be the story of a successful local being recognized for his athletic contribution to his alma mater, turned into a shaming piece because in 1997 Wiseman received a withheld adjudication for a sex offense.

While nobody would defend his crime, or any crime for that matter, one has to wonder why sex offenders are forced to be stigmatized years or decades after their offenses, while others are allowed to become productive members of society. Mr. Wiseman had apparently successfully completed probation in 2002 and had no other run-ins with the law. What’s the point in shaming him now? Worse yet; what’s the point in shaming his employer?

Florida Action Committee (FAC), founded in 2006, is a state-wide consortium of concerned citizens and professionals whose purpose is to promote the prevention of sexual abusewhile preserving the safety and dignity of all citizens through carefully structured laws targeting the truly violent, forced, and/or dangerous predatory acts of sex. FAC believes that many aspects of the current approach to sex offenders seriously undermine justice and actually increase the threat of sexual assault against others, particularly children. FAC opposes a publicized registry of sex offenders and seeks to bring an end to the humiliation of people who have already paid for their crimes. FAC asserts that only by supporting justice for all people—offenders and victims alike can a truly safe society be built and secured for all Americans.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Sex Offender’s Children’s Privacy Violations Raised

AVNETNEWS -  Feb. 11, 2014.  

Sex Offender’s Children’s privacy, although protected by State and Federal law, are alleged by citizens as routinely violated by Florida’s FDLE “scorched earth” policy intended to punish the offenders who are the children’s parents.  The blatant, routine violations of privacy are alleged to have “no legitimate purpose” or outright destructive by Washington State Judge Spanner recently.  The children, unable to cope, face bullying, which is a violation of Florida law, isolation, harassment and sometimes suicide. 

Citizens raise privacy concerns to higher courts concerning protection of the offender’s children who have committed no crime, neither are able to cope with that crushing stigma plus that few adults are equipped.  The children’s privacy violations also trigger violations of State, Interstate and Federal law and destroy fragile families trying to recover.  The family offenders are typically very low risk; yet, subject to enormous stigma discrimination.

Ironically, in the furor of sex offender issues to protect children, the safety and privacy of children of the sex offender have been ignored by legislators who have been alleged to profiteer from sex offender hysteria for political profit. The issue of privacy raises a breadth of issues for children and the offender as well.  In some states as Washington, low risk non predatory sex offenders and their children’s privacy are protected as not public information by law and by recent court order as well. 

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"When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect."
~Adlia Stevenson U.S. Vice President (1893–1897) and Congressman (1879–1881)

On a Personal Note

Thanks for the opportunity to express my thoughts regarding the issue of citizens’ rights, particularly addressing certain sex offenders’ crimes that do not fit the devastating, inequitable and endless punishment given.


As you know, many young men and women lives across the nation are being destroyed by incarceration, life-time registry and restrictive laws that do more harm than good. For those individuals, there is no second chance.

Below is a personal letter to President Obama:
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“Dear President Obama,

I truly agree with your sentiments that individuals, such as ex-felons, should be able to receive a second chance at life. Since we all know that one can veer off that path of life and travel along rough, rocky terrain, sometimes running off and ending up in some ditch. We all have made our fill of mistakes and sometimes those held a costly consequence that changed life forever. So we lived through it, trying harder to make things right with family, friends and those around us, but what about those who aren’t able to make things right even if they tried…because they’re labeled as too dirty, a leper, a person who is rejected from society and home.


But what if they’re a seventeen year old and had sex with a fifteen year old, consensual at that? Or they’re a teen that had gotten so enraged after a breakup that he sent out naked pictures of his girlfriend on his cell phone or email? Or an individual urinates where someone just happens to see them?


All are wrong and a travesty but do they deserve the life of no second chance with a registry that ends all. They are labeled, no jobs, no where to live…they have been deemed a menace to society, a plague. These certain circumstances, and many other situations similar to these, I believe still deserve a second change.

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution


Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.


After my son’s early release and two years of prison, I thought I had handled that fact graciously knowing after serving his time he would be able to get that fresh start, that second chance. He was an exemplary inmate, GED, college courses and vocational classes. Little did I know that a second chance on the outside was the farthest from the truth? He now struggles and lives in a trailer park sharing a trailer with another and surrounded by others in the same rocking boat, one to float endlessly in shark infested waters. I see him little because of probation requirements (he couldn’t live with us because we were 800 feet near a school). My family is afraid of what would happen to them if he lived with them…vigilantism. My son has no other place to stay since others condemn him of his crime that is screamed from the highest rooftop. Sex offender, sex offender!

Not all sex offenders are pedophiles or predators but some are simply young kids that make one stupid and rash decision that eventually changes everything, and they have no idea what they’ve done until their life is never their own. Exactly, where is that second chance for those sex-offenders who are lumped together with pedophiles and predators? Now, it makes me sick to think of my son’s future and many like him that are on the registry and many with no second chance…ever. I am asking you as a mother and as another concerned citizen of the United States that these laws are looked at again and taken into serious consideration in what they are doing to the Constitution of the United States, not for sex offenders in general but the future rights of every citizen, before anymore are put into effect. They unjustly strip an offender of their rights and place them in a guillotine that can be easily set off by anyone and at anytime. Where is the second chance for ex-sex offenders in the present, pending and future laws?”
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What truly saddens me is the weakness and deterioration of what the sex offense issue is doing to our once, great nation. Across Europe, others are seeing the injustice and disregard of rights, but we ignore this problem and it makes me wonder where humanity is heading….

We have become a hysterical society in which our latest witch-hunt is a sex offender--no matter his/her crime.

Below is a email sent from a foreign advocate to a father of a sex offender:
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“The tragic story of your son's death is just so sad that it's difficult to explain how. It was very hard to read your letters. It seems almost unbelievable that this can take place in a democracy! From our point of view, there is no justice in this. Not in any way: not for you, your son, the former girl friend – or even the state.

It is an abusive legal system. It seems barbaric. And we are so very sorry that this takes place. That's why it's so important for us to try to neutralize the debate with this…, hopefully making some changes. ….. to show the every day life of the sex offenders, trying to show how they keep on being punished, even after served prison time…..But we will for sure tell the story of the injustice that your son has been exposed to.”
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I appreciate everyone's commitment and backing to protect everyone's civil rights, plainly as noted in the Constitution of the United States and is presupposed, giving ALL men are “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.”