Copyright nypost
Nearly 6,000 serious sex offenders live in NYC — where a legal loophole allows convicted predators to live frighteningly close to schools and children’s playgrounds, The Post has learned. Paul Brown, a level 3 sex offender — the most serious classification, where the ex-con is considered most likely to re-offend — did seven years in prison for attempting to rape a 7-year-old girl in Brownsville, Brooklyn, according to records and police sources. Brown was released in November 2009 and returned to custody two more times in 2009 and 2012 for unknown violations, records show. But because of a loophole in the state law — which prohibits sexual predators from living within 1,000 feet of playgrounds and schools, but only while the offender is on parole or probation — the 49-year-old lives just 450 feet from Edenwald Playground and 750 feet from PS 112 in the Bronx neighborhood of Wakefield. Two local moms, Jenifer Ramirez and Yakira Colon, were horrified to learn of the sicko’s proximity to their kids’ school and playground — and that a whopping 135 other offenders live in their zip code, the second-most in the city. “I am very surprised because I thought it was safe here,” Colon, 34, told The Post, adding that her 10- and 6-year-old sons and 8-year-old daughter are in the playground nearly every day. “I feel very suspicious of the area now,” echoed Ramirez, 40, who has a 14-year-old daughter. “We know that many kids tell their moms, ‘Mama, we want to go to the park now,’ and then the kids go alone. What will happen if there’s a predator? The kids don’t know how to defend themselves. We thought it was safe, but I don’t feel secure anymore.” “If parents let their kids go to the park alone, in reality, there’s going to be consequences, by these people who are not healthy in the head,” agreed Colon. “But it’s tough – it’s a dilemma – because many parents have to work and can’t be with the children all the time.” The same loophole allows level 3 offender Victor Guardiola — convicted in 2010 of sexually abusing his 10-year-old granddaughter, and sodomizing another 10-year-old girl in 1989 — to reside 600 feet away from Martin Luther King Jr. Playground in East New York, the registry shows. Lax location restrictions play into the hands of child predators, experts say. “We know from seasoned sex crime investigators is that a lot of sex offenders are disproportionately likely to commit sex offences close to where they live,” said Jane Manning, a former sex crimes prosecutor and director of Women’s Equal Justice. The loophole is the reason state Assemblyman Joe Sempolinski (R-Allegany) is fighting to pass a bill which would prohibit sex offenders from residing within a quarter mile — or 1,320 feet — from any school, playground or park regardless of their parole or probation status. Convicted predators “don’t magically get better when their parole is up,” Sempolinski told The Post. “They’re no longer incarcerated, but we need to make sure that we’re taking steps to protect kids at all times, and I think it’s a pretty reasonable ask that we, as a state, say that people who have committed and been convicted of crimes of this nature should not be living near places where kids congregate.” The legislation has been around since 2012 but has repeatedly died in the Democrat-controlled Assembly, records show. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who has reportedly blocked bills that would benefit sex crime victims, did not respond to inquiries about the latest proposed legislation. A total of 5,750 level 2 and 3 sex offenders — the most serious of three designations — live in the five boroughs, according to a Post analysis of the state registry, which is updated daily. The state registry lookup can be found here. The five zip codes with the highest concentrations of level 2 and 3 sex offenders include: 10035, which encompasses Ward’s Island and part of East Harlem, is home to 459 offenders. Most of them them are in psychiatric centers and men’s shelters on Ward’s Island. 10466, which covers Wakefield, has 136 offenders. At least 55 reside at Project Renewal Ana’s Place, a 108-bed shelter for mentally-ill men at 430 Bronx Blvd. 11207, which encompasses East New York in Brooklyn, is home to 135 offenders. 10457, which covers parts of Belmont, Mt. Hope and Tremont in the Bronx, counts 129 offenders. 11208, which encompasses parts of Brooklyn’s East New York and Cyprus Hills, and is home to 128 offenders. Melinda Perkins, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 5, which covers part of East New York, called Guardiola’s proximity to Edenwald Playground “terrible,” and blasted city agencies for allowing the nabe to become “oversaturated” with sex offenders compared to other areas. “Certain facilities and services should be shared across the city, and shouldn’t be oversaturated in any one community board — especially those communities that have had a history of neglect and disinvestment like East New York,” Perkins told The Post. Even some of the city’s ritziest zip codes are home to a significant number of level 2 and 3 sex offenders, including: 11222, which covers Brooklyn’s Greenpoint, where 45 offenders live. The majority of them — 32 — reside in Home-Life Services, a homeless shelter complex on Clay Street and Manhattan Avenue. 11201, Brooklyn Heights, is home to 17 predators. 11211, which covers Williamsburg in Brooklyn, has 17 offenders. 11217, or Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill, includes 15 predators. 10010, which encompasses Kips Bay in Manhattan, has 13 offenders. Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa is not just in favor of restricting where sex offenders are allowed to live — “but I’m also for monitoring their activities and where they’re going” using technology like ankle bracelets, he said. “That’s the only way you can stop it, if you make that mandatory,” Sliwa said. “They can live outside the zone, but what prevents them from just walking over and hanging out in a playground, in the park or outside of schools? “We have to protect the children . . . and the demons that lurk within [offenders] may strike up at a moment’s notice.” Level 1 sex offenders — who are considered the least likely to reoffend — do not appear in the state’s public registry, but as of Oct. 1, there were 2,849 of them residing across the five boroughs, according to the latest data from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. Additional reporting by Tina Moore.
