Sexual Offenders' Pictures On Web
CBI speeds posting after 74 leave prison
By Julia C. Martinez, Denver Post Capitol Bureau
Originally published in The Denver Post, July 29, 2001
Pictures of repeat sex offenders released from state prisons last week are being posted on the Internet as the Colorado Bureau of Investigation works feverishly to calm public fears and comply with a new state law.
Gov. Bill Owens ordered the bureau to speed up the process for identifying and posting information and photographs of the most dangerous child molesters and rapists after calls poured in to police stations around the state from worried parents, crime victims and other citizens.
"The governor has requested that CBI get the names on the website as soon as possible," Owens' spokeswoman Amy Jewett Sampson said Friday.
Prison gates around the state opened this past week for 74 convicted sex offenders who were released after recent rulings by the Colorado Supreme Court and the Colorado Court of Appeals. About half were released in Denver.
By Friday, the CBI's Crime Information Center Unit in Denver had shifted into high gear, rapidly processing information from the Department of Corrections to determine which ex-convicts were eligible for posting, said Michael Igoe, agent in charge of the unit. By late in the day, six mug shots had been posted and more were going up by the hour.
"People need information that they can use to protect themselves," Igoe said. "Knowing that a sexually violent predator or a sex offender with multiple convictions is out of compliance with the registration law or that a sex offender is living in their neighborhood is information a citizen or parent can use to protect themselves or their children."
The pictures and identifying characteristics of multiple sex offenders, those who have committed a felony sex crime and a violent crime or those who have failed to register with local police, are required to be posted on a CBI website and made accessible to the public under a new state law enacted July 1. The site is http://sor.state.co.us.
The sex offenders were freed this past week after courts ruled that many were sentenced under a flawed 1993 statute rather than a 1996 law. The rulings will eventually affect more than 1,500 sex offenders sentenced to prison between 1993 and 1998.
"This is an issue with tremendous public concern," said CBI Deputy Director Al Stanley. "We're giving this group our No. 1 priority."
Before the law was enacted, only the most violent sexual predators were eligible for posting, and in Colorado only one individual qualified, Leland Allen McCoy, 55, of Durango. But the legislature broadened the list in the 2001 session after prodding from citizens.
"People are wondering what the state is doing to make them feel safer in their neighborhoods in light of these releases," Stanley said. "The more rapidly we can get the information up, the more comfortable the community will be."
Michael Akers of Colorado Springs and David Cox of Denver were the first two released sex offenders eligible for immediate posting on the Internet.
Akers, 55, has convictions for child sexual assault and other crimes. David Cox, 34, had registered with police in Denver. Cox had served time for sexual assault.
Besides photos, the website includes a physical description of the sex offenders, the crime they committed and their address.
By law, all sex offenders have 24 hours from the time they're released to register with their local law enforcement agency.
Stanley said the CBI had marshaled its forces to research the backgrounds of the newly released sex offenders and determine their whereabouts. About 15 people from the Crime Information Center Unit plus another six borrowed from other units were assigned to the project as of Friday, Stanley said.
Igoe said all law enforcement agencies, including the CBI, were caught by surprise Monday by the court's refusal to rehear two landmark sex offender cases and the subsequent release. "What we have now is scrambling to try to catch up," Igoe said.
The Supreme Court concluded last year that conflicting laws passed by the legislature in the 1990s shortened the prison or parole term of thousands of convicted sex offenders. Most of the sex offenders affected by the ruling will be released from prison without parole supervision.
ON THE WEB
The address for the CBI website with photos and identifying characteristics of sex offenders released from Colorado prisons is sor.state.co.us.
