Kidnapped 5-year-old Natalie rescued by police | The Money Times

Kidnapped 5-year-old Natalie rescued by police | The Money Times

newsdurhamregion.com | Tippett found guilty of all charges related to Courtice sex assault

newsdurhamregion.com | Tippett found guilty of all charges related to Courtice sex assault

Cops catch suspect shortly after robbery, sexual assault :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

Cops catch suspect shortly after robbery, sexual assault :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State: "Sun-Times Media Wire
A convicted child sex offender was captured by Chicago Police shortly after he allegedly robbed and sexually assaulted a mother and her daughter late Monday in the Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side.
Albert Robinson, 37, of the 11100 block of South Vernon Avenue, was charged Tuesday with two counts of armed robbery and one count of aggravated sexual assault, according to police.
Calumet District officers were flagged down by the victims about 11:30 p.m. Monday, according to a release from police News Affairs. The victims told officers they had just been robbed at gunpoint and sexually assaulted in the11000 block of South State Street.
The women gave a description of the offender and en route to the hospital, they saw Robinson walking down the street, the release said. They positively identified him as the man who had displayed a handgun and robbed them before sexually assaulting one of them.
As officers attempted to approach Robinson, he took notice and ran. Officers alerted other officers of the foot chase and gave out a description, the release said. With the help of assisting officers Robinson was apprehended a short distance away.
Property belonging to the victims was recovered and Robinson was placed under arrest, the release said. He will appear in bond court Wednesday morning."

St. Leonard closes doors to sex offenders -- chicagotribune.com

There no longer is a licensed halfway home for sex offenders in northern Illinois after a transitional housing facility on the Near West Side shut its doors to that challenging population.

St. Leonard's Ministries, which has a long record of helping to reform all types of felons, told the Department of Corrections it would no longer house any sex offenders after Julius Anderson slipped off its grounds in August never to return.

The department had placed Anderson in St. Leonard's on electronic monitoring despite protests by prosecutors who said his history of sexual violence and mental illness guaranteed that he would commit another offense. Within weeks of leaving the halfway house and cutting his electronic bracelet, Anderson was charged with sexually assaulting two Chicago women at knifepoint.

The attacks prompted a public outcry, but Bob Dougherty, executive director of St. Leonard's, said Anderson was not the only reason the halfway home stopped accepting sex offenders.

Budget woes had caused St. Leonard's to eliminate its specialized sex offender treatment in July. While halfway houses are not required to provide such treatment in order to house sex offenders, St. Leonard's viewed it as a necessary component.

"We don't want to accept people who can't benefit from being here," Dougherty said.

The move was cheered by St. Leonard's neighbors who said they feared for their safety. And Anderson's accusers held the organization partly responsible for what happened, made evident by a civil lawsuit filed against the state and St. Leonard's last week.

"How does someone like that just walk away from a halfway house?" said one victim, who was entering her boyfriend's apartment in Lakeview when she was forced inside and sexually assaulted at knifepoint. "The system failed me."

At the same time, experts said, the St. Leonard's decision has compounded a severe problem in Illinois: a shortage of housing for sex offenders.

Sex offenders have long been prohibited from living in households with children younger than 18 and within 500 feet of a school, park or child-care facility. A 2005 law expanded the restrictions by prohibiting more than one sex offender from living under the same roof unless in halfway homes licensed by the Department of Corrections or other residential facilities operated by the state, such as nursing homes.

Many halfway homes that once housed sex offenders closed because they could not meet the new licensing requirements, such as 24-hour security, or because of community opposition.

Aside from St. Leonard's Ministries, the only other transitional housing facility licensed to take sex offenders in Illinois is Another Chance Ministries in East St. Louis.

"This only exacerbates what is already a very difficult challenge in finding appropriate housing for sex offenders that are to be released," said Januari Smith, spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections.

If they can't find housing, many sex offenders are remaining in prison during their parole. The department houses 1,000 sex offenders who have met their parole dates but have not been released because they have not secured suitable housing.

The problem is, after serving parole behind bars these offenders are released into the community with no supervision or transitional support. In many cases, they do not register as sex offenders and may give false addresses or simply disappear, according to reviews by the state's attorney general.

"It's the irony of these housing restrictions," said David Olson, a professor of criminal justice at Loyola University in Chicago, who serves on an advisory board to the Department of Corrections. "When they're finally released, they have no supervision."

Meanwhile, the number of sex offenders in state nursing homes has increased.

St. Leonard's, which provides housing and support services to a variety of felons leaving prison, began accepting sex offenders in the early 1990s, and only two or three lived there at any given time, Dougherty said.

Of the 65 sex offenders placed there since 2000, three returned to prison -- compared to the nearly 50 percent recidivism rate for all parolees, Dougherty said.

Anderson was the first one to leave the grounds without authorization, he said.

St. Leonard's will continue to serve parolees who are not sex offenders.

Three sex offenders who arrived at St. Leonard's before Anderson remain there, including a 32-year-old-man who described the halfway home as "a godsend."

The man, who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld, said he had no place else to live because his friends and family had children or lived near child-care centers or schools. Since arriving in St. Leonard's in the summer of 2008, he has received psychological treatment and job training. He's taking classes at a community college and hopes to one day help reform felons like himself.

"I never thought any of this would be possible," he said.

He and the other two men will be the last sex offenders to call St. Leonard's home.

National Ledger - Shaq & Funeral: Shaquille O'Neal Pays for Shaniya Davis Service

National Ledger - Shaq & Funeral: Shaquille O'Neal Pays for Shaniya Davis Service: "Basketball giant Shaquille O'Neal showed his softer side when he footed the bill for a five-year-old girl's funeral. The 37-year-old, who stands at 7 ft 1in tall, was touched by the story of five-year-old Shaniya Davis, who was raped and murdered earlier this month.

It is claimed that O'Neal then paid the bill for her funeral, which is estimated to be around $4,500.


***


O'Neal said to Cleveland Plain Dealer: 'Being a law-enforcement guy that investigates crime against children, I wanted to be able to help in some way.' Davis's funeral was recently held in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and more than 2,000 people attended."