"Sex offender expert" Kurt M. Bumby allegedly shows how he got his expertise

Guess we know now why he's an "expert" on sex offenses...

Wikipedia recently deleted this guy's Wikipedia entry. Here's how it once read:

Kurt Bumby is a forensic psychologist, creator of the Bumby scales of cognitive distortion, and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry/Medical Psychology with the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. He has presented material to the U.S. Sentencing Commission on alternatives to incarceration and to the Justice Center of the Council of State Governments on sex offender reentry.

Bumby received his doctoral degree from the Law/Psychology and Clinical Psychology Training Program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In 1994 Bumby received the Graduate Research Award for Research Excellence in the Field of Sex Offender Treatment from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), and was a co-recipient of the Hugo G. Beigel Research Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in 1996. Bumby is a Clinical Member of ATSA, serving as a State Public Policy Representative, and is a clinical member of the International Association for the Treatment of Sexual Offenders.

In December of 2019, Bumby was charged with sodomy with minors in both Boone and St. Louis Counties.

https://www.moberlymonitor.com/news/20191223/sex-offender-expert-arrested-on-child-abuse-charges

Sex offender expert arrested on child abuse charges

By Pat Pratt
Posted Dec 23, 2019 at 4:07 PM 

A Columbia forensic psychologist and national leader in the field of sex offender management has surrendered to St. Louis Metropolitan Police on warrants for child sex crimes in two Missouri counties.

Court filings show Kurt M. Bumby, 50, was arrested Friday by St. Louis Metropolitan Police on a Boone County warrant for two counts of statutory sodomy and a St. Louis warrant for two counts of sodomy. Bumby was booked into the St. Louis County Jail and posted a $200,000 cash-only bond — $100,000 each for the two sets of charges — to secure his release.

Defense attorney Joel Schwartz did not return calls or emails seeking comment.

Bumby for nearly two decades served as an advisor on sex offender management to governmental agencies across the nation. He is accused of molesting two children in incidents in both counties, the oldest of those charges stretching back to 1988.

In November, Bumby was paid $280,000 to present a report to the Arizona Supreme Court.

Court spokesman Aaron Nash on Monday said the court will conduct a review of the report, which was authored by Bumby and another, but many of the recommendations seem to be in line with what many experts say are current best practices.

“Most were not controversial, they were things like treatment should be specific to the individual,” Nash said. “But this is a big deal, so it’s something the Arizona Court is taking back to the National Center for State Courts, who provided the study, just to check back in and ask is there anything in here that reflects bias, is there anything that needs to be revisited.”

In the report, Bumby advocated for the elimination of polygraphs for juveniles, which Nash said has met with some controversy. In light of the recommendation, Nash said the court did agree to a judicial officer approval before the test could be administered.

“So it (a polygraph) is still an option, but a probation officer or somebody has to make the request to a judge, with the information why they think it’s appropriate for this child and this incident, and then the judge makes a decision,” Nash said.

Missouri Supreme Court spokeswoman Beth Riggert said on Friday she was unable to locate anything which showed Bumby had presented or made any recommendation to the courts in Missouri.

From 2003 until Jan. 1, during much of the time the alleged abuse was taking place, Bumby was a senior associate with the Center for Effective Public Policy, a position in which he discussed with and presented to judges, state officials and policymakers across the nation trends in the rehabilitation and recidivism of sex offenders.

As part of his duties, he has been the director of the Center for Sex Offender Management. He also served as principal assistant to the director of the Division of Youth Services in the period from about 1999 to 2003 and prior to that as a psychologist at Fulton State Hospital.

In the Boone County case, investigators with the Missouri State Highway Patrol wrote that Bumby sodomized a child who was a family friend multiple times between 2008 and 2015 at Bumby’s home in Columbia.

The case involving the St. Louis child dates 1988 to 1994, while Bumby was attending school at the University of Missouri, and again stemmed from a relationship he had with the victim’s family. He would visit the victim’s home on the weekends and began abusing them.

Kelly Kopecky of Milwaukee WI wants to "make some noise" to chase registered persons out of her community

She's a registered Republican, so I'm not surprised at her antics.

https://www.cbs58.com/news/neighbors-upset-about-placement-of-two-violent-sex-offenders-in-same-home-on-south-side

Neighbors upset about placement of two violent sex offenders in same home on south side
By: Brittany Lewis

Posted: Aug 12, 2019 10:31 PM CDT

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- People living in The Garden District neighborhood on the south side of Milwaukee are upset that two violent sex offenders have been placed in the same house in their neighborhood.

They shared their concerns at a sex offender notification meeting Monday night at the Bay View Library.

"We’re just going to make as much noise as possible because this absolutely cannot happen," said Kelly Kopecky, who lives in the neighborhood...

"This is the end of a very long process that ultimately returns somebody to the community that you don't want returned to your community. There's no way of sugar coating that, so I'm not going to sugar coat it," said Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

"What I can tell you, and what I'm here to tell you at the end of that long process results, ultimately in determination by a judge, that this person is appropriate to be released back into the community."

Chisholm said in 2000, the district attorney's office initiated a Chapter 980 proceeding so that Parrish could be civilly committed as long as doctors said he was a sexually violent person.

"We got an additional almost 20 years of keeping Parrish off the streets of Milwaukee," said Chisholm.

Once released, Parrish was initially at a home in Sauk County, but his attorney fought to get him back to Milwaukee County and a court ordered the Department of Health Services to move him to Milwaukee County because it is his county of residence.

The home on Waterford was picked based on a decision by a committee that is put together to look for housing for Chapter 980 sex offenders returning to their community, according to a representative from the Department of Health Services who spoke at the meeting.

"I can see in their house, they can see in my house, it’s sixteen feet, the distance," said Kopecky.

While representatives at the meeting said the home fit the criteria for where the sex offenders can live, neighbors believe the home is too isolated where it sits on a dead end road. People also shared concerns about the number of children in the neighborhood who play on a green space and community garden near the home.

"They have a constitutional right to be released after they’ve served their time no question about that, however I think the neighbors have the right to feel safe," said State Representative Christine Sinicki who was at the meeting Monday night.

"To hopefully make the decision makers understand that this is a really poor choice."

Sinicki said she is working on a bill that will require sex offender notifications be mailed to homes, that meetings be held before a sex offender is placed in a neighborhood and that elected officials in the area also receive notice that sex offenders are moving to the neighborhoods they represent.

https://fox6now.com/2019/08/11/disaster-waiting-to-happen-neighbors-rally-against-sex-offender-placement-in-home-on-milwaukees-south-side/

MILWAUKEE -- A group of neighbors on Milwaukee's south side said they're tired of violent sex offenders being placed in their neighborhood. Two sex offenders have been placed there within the last month, and those who live nearby said they're scared and want to see the men moved.

"It terrifies me, to be honest," said Kelly Kopecky, who lives near 6th and Waterford in Milwaukee. "It's very unsettling, to say the least."...

"They probably think it looks good on paper because it's isolated, but isolation is kind of the dream house for a pedophile," said Kopecky.

The home sits on a dead end, and isn't near a school or day care, but neighbors said many children live in the area.

"This is a neighborhood full of kids, and these kids play in the field right alongside to the house, and that is a disaster waiting to happen," said Rep. Sinicki. ...

The two offenders are not allowed to leave the home, but neighbors said the fear lies with the unknown. They want the men moved, and do not want other criminals to return, fearing other sex offenders could be moved into the home.

"We're hoping to get this house deemed unacceptable," said Kopecky.

Australian Feminism Extremist Clementine Ford likens a grandpa hugging his grandkid to sexual assault and #MeToo

The #MeToo Moron of the Year award was a one-year deal but if I kept it for year two, this nut would be at the top of the list. Many feminists thinklike this but Ford represents some of the more extremist feminists out there. So she just deserves an Everyday Zeroes award.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7206839/Clementine-Ford-links-grandpa-asking-one-year-old-granddaughter-hug-metoo.html

Hardline feminist Clementine Ford ties a man 'trading hugs for blowing bubbles with his granddaughter' to sexual assault and the #MeToo movement in new advice column

By HANNAH MOORE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

PUBLISHED: 20:47 EDT, 2 July 2019 | UPDATED: 22:28 EDT, 2 July 2019

Feminist author Clementine Ford has used her first agony aunt column to liken the actions of a grandfather desperate for affection to the #MeToo movement.

An anonymous mother wrote to Ms Ford through Yahoo, asking how she should respond to her father-in-law offering to blow bubbles for her one-year-old daughter on the condition she gave him a hug.

She said her daughter had been playing with her grandfather, who was blowing bubbles for her. When he stopped, the one-year-old asked him to keep going.

The grandfather responded by telling her: 'I'll blow you more bubbles if you give me a hug', the woman said. 

'I am furious that he tried to bribe my child with something she really wanted for her affection. I said, "we don't negotiate for hugs",' the mother wrote.

'How can I best advocate for my daughter in these situations when all I want to do is come down on other people like a tonne of bricks for perpetuating a culture where women feel they owe men/people affection, that their affection is a favour that can be bought?'

Ms Ford wrote back, explaining to the woman that she wasn't overreacting, and was helping prepare her daughter to speak up if she was uncomfortable with the advances of someone older than her.

The author, who describes herself as a 'hardline feminist', said it could be 'hugely disempowering' to be a child. 

Ms Ford said children who attempted to enforce boundaries with adults when it came to physical contact were often ignored. 

'Is it any wonder the #metoo movement has unearthed so many stories of women manipulated or trapped into activity they don't remember consenting to but felt ill-prepared to stop?,' she wrote.

Ms Ford advised the woman to explain her choices to her family without her daughter present, and to remind them one in five women in Australia will experience sexual assault at some point in their life.

She continued to say forcing a child into hugging and kissing people with more power than them could teach them it was normal to trade physical affection for things they wanted. 

The column was Ms Ford's first for Yahoo Australia, and comes just months after she spectacularly resigned as a columnist for Fairfax because of 'censorship'.

Many women praised Ms Ford's words, saying they agreed with her stance on teaching children consent early.

'Exactly on point with many conversations I have tried to have with extended family (only to be vilified for it),' one woman wrote.

'But worth every patronising comment because from two years old my oldest daughter was already asserting herself with phrases like "it's my body" and "no, I'm the boss of my body". My own little mini hardline feminist!'

But some said Ms Ford had gone too far, and not considered the complexities of intention. 

'Boys often hate kissing their mothers when they reach adolescence, or younger. Are mums meant to back off because they’re now seeking unwanted physical favours?' one man asked.

'Clementine’s point is easy to make because it doesn’t take the time to consider the complexities of the intentions of the family.

'Any resistance from well meaning, loving adults who want to show and receive affection (which is now evil) is regarded as potential sexual interference in the upbringing of a child. This harms the child in the end, and why? To satisfy the worries of the hypersensitive feminist mother?'

When are women going to learn that it is NEVER a good idea to download child porn in an attempt to set up an ex?

Well, I suppose you have to go back to 2009 to find it but this is not actually the first time I've featured a case where an attempt to set up an ex. In fact, this isn't even the second time I've featured a story like this, as the second was in 2014. So I guess I'll have another nominee in 2024 for doing the same stupid crap?

https://fox8.com/2019/07/02/arkansas-woman-must-register-as-sex-offender-after-trying-to-frame-husband-for-child-porn-rape/

Arkansas woman must register as sex offender after trying to frame husband for child porn, rape
POSTED 8:57 PM, JULY 2, 2019, BY TRIBUNE MEDIA WIRE

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — An Arkansas woman was given six years probation for trying to frame her husband by downloading child pornography on his cellphone and telling authorities he raped a 13-year-old girl.

Cherie Renee Bolton, 34, of Siloam Springs, pleaded guilty last week in Benton County Circuit Court to distributing, possessing or viewing child pornography and filing a false police report.

Bolton must register as a sex offender and pay more than $2,000 in fines and court fees.

Judge Brad Karren also ordered that Bolton must serve the full six-year sentence.

Bolton was arrested in January 2018 following an investigation by Siloam Springs police after she made the initial allegations about her husband.

Bolton first told police that her husband was sexually assaulting the girl and had attacked Bolton when she caught the pair, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Bolton presented police with three images of child pornography and showed them a possible bruise on her ribs that investigators were unable to positively identify. Bolton said she waited to make a report because she feared retaliation from her husband.

But investigators later discovered that Bolton’s husband had kicked her out of their home days before she called police.

Investigators then extracted the photos from the phone and found Bolton downloaded the images.

Bolton initially denied knowing how the images got on the phone, but after further questioning, said she downloaded them because she was high on meth, in the middle of a manic episode and was upset that her husband was trying to keep her from seeing their kids.

Bolton’s husband and the girl also denied any sexual abuse occurred.

Bolton said after being kicked out of the house, she went to a motel in West Siloam Springs, Okla., where she did meth with a man she met off Craigslist.

She said the man kicked her out of the room after an argument.

Bolton believed she downloaded the images while she was at the motel, but said she couldn’t be sure, according to the affidavit.

She added that she was outside Ozark Guidance in Siloam Springs at some point but later woke up at Springwood’s Behavioral Health in Fayetteville.

Australian yobbo Tania Roy to create her own registry ahead of the gov't

We cover Australia on occasion here at the Shiitakes but no one from Down Under has won an award. Could this change?

https://www.9news.com.au/national/sex-offender-register-why-queensland-woman-wants-to-build-her-own-public-database-a-current-affair/6b5d477d-f89d-442f-8080-a1ec3e6fe27b

Queensland woman’s plan to ‘beat Dutton’ to building controversial sex offender registry

By A Current Affair Staff
7:43pm Jun 27, 2019

A single mother has vowed to launch her own register of child abusers and violent offenders, claiming she will beat the government to the punch.

Queensland woman Tania Roy started her Facebook page Australian Sex, DV Offenders and Child Abusers Exposed five years ago, after she became aware of a sex offender living in her community.
The page has grown to have nearly 50,000 followers, with posts scheduled for nearly every hour of the day.

"I get up every morning about 2.30am, and I start doing online searches ... and I look for offenders in the community and I structure a post," she said.

"I go through police media sites, I go through my inbox, and I do media searches."...

In the five years Ms Roy has been running the page, she's named and shamed thousands of offenders.

But she claimed she had never once named an innocent person, or faced any legal repercussions.
"I look after it like it's one of my children," she said.

"I make sure it's run properly, I make sure I don't break the law in anything that I do, and I make sure nobody else does."

Now, she is working with a web developer to launch her own online register of child abusers and violent offenders.

Prior to this year's federal election, the government committed to producing a public register of child sex offenders at a cost of $7.8 million.

At the time, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton claimed there were "very good" examples of how such a registry could work.

It is still in the planning stages, needing new legislation to be passed, and the participation of state and territory governments.

"We're now relying on the politicians to pass a bill," Ms Roy said.

"I don't have any faith in them passing this bill whatsoever."

She told A Current Affair her register was designed to list the name and the details of offenders in the community, and their location - down to a suburb.

"Not a street, not a house, no phone numbers, nothing like that will happen," she said.

But criminologist and former police detective Terry Goldsworthy said there was no evidence public registers worked.

"The studies are clear, very clear I think, that these kind of things don't necessarily aid in community protection, reduction of offences, et cetera," he said.

"What they are good for though, is allowing politicians to beat their chest to say, 'look how hard we are on crime'."

But Ms Roy is determined, and claims hers will be up and running in a couple of months.
"I'll do it, and I'll beat Dutton to it," she said.

She said the thanks she got for her work told her people were "relieved somebody's out there fighting for them".

In a statement, Queensland Police said they had managed Queensland’s Child Protection Offender Register since 2005, and that public safety and the protection of Queenslanders remained the top priority.

Stacie Rumenap and her Astroturf group Stop Child Predators is exactly what I've warned about the Victim Industry for YEARS

I have been saying this for years but no one listens. Most of these victim advocate groups aren't grassroots activist groups, they are multi-million-dollar industries with hidden agendas. By the way, are you aware that Mark Lunsford, the epitome of people exploiting their personal tragedy for profit, works with Stop Child Predators?

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/airbnb-debate-stranger-danger_n_5d115831e4b0a39418678e48

POLITICS 06/26/2019 05:00 am ET
A New Argument In The Debate Over Airbnb: Stranger Danger

A nonprofit with possible ties to industry lobbyists says short-term rentals are an invitation for child predators.
By Michael Hobbes

The hotel industry has never liked Airbnb. Since the launch of the short-term rental company in 2008, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the sector’s trade group and lobbying arm, has urged cities to tax, restrict and prohibit Airbnb’s activities.

But now the industry may be encouraging a new tactic: inciting fear of child predators.

“With a revolving door of strangers coming and going from short-term rental properties, tools like sex offender lists are becoming obsolete,” wrote Stacie Rumenap, president of the nonprofit Stop Child Predators, in a guest column last March in the Knox News in Knoxville, Tennessee. “There is no safeguard in place to stop a child predator from renting an Airbnb property next door.”

At the time, Tennessee lawmakers were considering whether to forbid cities across the state from regulating short-term rentals. Rumenap wrote that if the legislation passed, “the term ‘Stranger Danger’ will take on a whole new meaning for parents in Tennessee as the community fabric of neighborhoods across the state will be fractured and local schools, parents and children will have to contend with more complete strangers in their neighborhoods.”

Tennessee was not the only battle in Stop Child Predators’ war against short-term rentals. Throughout 2018 and into 2019, the group has published nearly identical op-eds and letters to the editor in Miami and Washington, D.C., and participated in anti-Airbnb campaigns in Los Angeles, Boston and San Diego. Starting in June 2018, the group’s Facebook page dedicated itself almost exclusively to supporting local efforts to restrict short-term rentals. In May 2019 alone, Stop Child Predators posted more than two dozen advertisements related to legislation in Hawaii that would loosen the state’s existing regulations and allow more Airbnb units to come onto the market.

“How would you feel,” the group writes on its page about the Hawaii bill, “if you are a parent of young children, about your kids playing outside in the cul-de-sac, riding bikes or playing ball when you have no idea who is renting out the place next door and have no real way of finding out?”

Grassroots Or Astroturf?

Many of the advertisements and other written materials produced by Stop Child Predators have a striking resemblance to the messaging that the hotel industry uses in its own efforts to restrict the operations of Airbnb.

“Commercial landlords are using Airbnb to rent out multiple residential properties year-round, just like a hotel, while avoiding regulation and taxes,” writes the AHLA on the “Illegal Hotels” page of its website.

“Commercial landlords are increasingly using short-term rental sites like Airbnb to rent out multiple residential properties year-round, just like a hotel, while avoiding safeguards designed to protect patrons and the surrounding community,” writes Stop Child Predators on its “Special Projects” page.

The AHLA, whose members include Marriott, Hyatt, the Four Seasons and Red Roof Inn, has a history of carrying out lobbying efforts using nonprofit organizations. In 2017, The New York Times published an internal document laying out the AHLA’s strategy for fending off Airbnb. In the document, the AHLA admitted that it had “stood up” a group called AirbnbWATCH to gather negative stories about short-term rentals.

Similarly, the Center for Public Integrity reported in 2015 that a group called Neighbors for Overnight Oversight was also an AHLA-funded “astroturf” group. Though the group is now defunct, its website redirects to AirbnbWATCH.

“When businesses face major threats that could potentially harm their whole industry, these kinds of ‘grassroots’ campaigns start to happen in a pretty serious way,” Edward Walker, a University of California, Los Angeles, sociology professor told the Center for Public Integrity in 2015. Stop Child Predators and AirbnbWATCH both tweet using a number of phrases featured in AHLA press releases, including “commercial landlords” and  “revolving door of strangers.”

The AHLA did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this article.

Stop Child Predators has also been linked to corporate lobbying efforts in the past. According to a 2011 Mother Jones investigation, one of the group’s earliest lobbying efforts was in support of “Jessica’s Law,” legislation that requires sex offenders to be monitored by GPS. At the time, Rumenap was on the advisory board of Omnilink Systems, a major vendor of the “offender monitoring” devices. Mother Jones reported that Omnilink would have earned up to $20 per person per day for every sex offender subject to the law if monitored using Omnilink’s equipment. Omnilink was also listed as a corporate partner of Stop Child Predators at the time.

Though the group’s website features a “donate” button, its most recent tax filing noted that it received just 9.6% of its revenue from the public. The source of its remaining income is not specified.

Stop Child Predators did not respond to multiple requests to comment for this article.

Regulating Airbnb Is Unlikely To Make Children Safer

Regardless of Stop Child Predators’ links to the AHLA, it’s worth considering the group’s argument on the merits: Would restricting Airbnb really make children safer?

Even a cursory look at the evidence indicates that it would not.

While child sexual abuse remains alarmingly common — up to 5% of boys and 12% of girls experience abuse before turning 18 — only 7% is committed by strangers or acquaintances. The vast majority is perpetrated by friends (often minors themselves), family members or authority figures such as teachers or coaches.

And when it comes to kidnappings, “stranger danger” is even rarer: In 2011, just 105 children were abducted by adults they didn’t know in the entire United States. Considering that more than 200,000 children are reported missing each year, strangers represent a tiny portion of the danger posed to children in the United States.

“Research on child sexual abuse does not support these concerns,” said Sandy Rozek, the communications director for the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws. “Extensive research has documented that child sexual abuse risk overwhelmingly comes from individuals that children know, not strangers.”

While it is true that people accused of abusing children have done so in houses rented on Airbnb, they have also used hotel rooms and, of course, their own homes. Airbnb says it performs limited background checks on its users, but the AHLA does not appear to recommend or require that its members perform any background checks on their customers.

Perhaps the oddest argument Stop Child Predators has made is that it opposes only “commercial landlords” but has no interest in preventing individuals from renting out their own homes or spare bedrooms using Airbnb. This stance is identical to that of the AHLA but inconsistent with the organization’s own messaging about neighborhoods becoming a “revolving door of strangers.” If, as the group argues, Airbnb cannot prevent sexual predators from renting rooms through its platform, this concern would apply regardless of whether homeowners or commercial landlords controlled the property.

While Airbnb is just as profit-maximizing as the hotel industry and has carried out its own lobbying efforts to protect its business model, the predator argument may represent a new low in the debate over short-term rental regulations. There may be legitimate reasons to regulate Airbnb, but “stranger danger” is a dubious one.

Andrea Goldblum gets fired for condemning a registrant who rurned his life around

She deserved to be fired. Case dismissed.

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2019/05/29/lawsuit-university-cincinnati-honored-sex-offender-forced-out-official-who-investigated/1259798001/

Lawsuit: UC honored sex offender, then forced out official who investigated him

---

Kevin Grasha ,  Katherine Murphy  | Cincinnati Enquirer Updated 22 hours ago

The University of Cincinnati's former Title IX coordinator was forced to resign after she raised concerns about honoring a student who was a registered sex offender, a lawsuit says.

Andrea Goldblum had been UC's Title IX coordinator for nine months when the lawsuit says she was forced to resign in March 2019. Goldblum had started an informal investigation into what officials knew about the student before he was admitted to the university and before he was honored as part of graduation in December 2018, according to the lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Cincinnati.

The action taken against her was directly related to her investigation and reporting of possible Title IX violations by the university, the lawsuit says, "and was designed to punish and intimidate Goldblum from publicly disclosing potential misconduct by UC officials."

Lori Ross, UC's vice president for legal affairs and general counsel, said in a statement that the lawsuit "is without merit."

"We will present the relevant facts and evidence through the established legal proceedings," Ross said.

The case surrounds an article published online by the College of Arts and Sciences, which said the student, 24-year-old William Houston, was honored at graduation for "overcoming major challenges."

Houston was one of several students selected to receive "triumph cords" at graduation, signifying they had overcome adversity. He had been nominated by faculty.

The article did not mention Houston's 2015 conviction in Wood County for sexually assaulting a female student the previous year when he was a sophomore at Bowling Green State University.

Houston pleaded no contest to gross sexual imposition and was sentenced to three years of probation, court records show. He is a registered sex offender in Ohio.

The student who wrote the article and university staff who reviewed it were not aware of Houston's criminal background, university spokeswoman M.B. Reilly told The Enquirer in February.

Reilly said Houston answered questions honestly on his application about his criminal conviction. There was a review by admissions and student affairs officials, she said.

Houston was monitored and mentored throughout his time at UC, Reilly said, which spanned the fall of 2016 to December 2018. UC police were notified of his history and kept tabs on him during his time as a student, she said.

According to the lawsuit, Goldblum was concerned that promoting Houston "fostered the creation of a sexually hostile environment and made female…students vulnerable to sexual assault."

As Title IX coordinator, Goldblum was responsible for overseeing an office that investigates complaints and assists students impacted by sexual violence and harassment.

She wanted to submit a letter to the school newspaper offering resources to students "who may have negative responses to UC giving an award to a convicted sex offender," the lawsuit says.

But Bleuzette Marshall, the university’s vice president for equity, inclusion and community impact, deemed the letter "unsatisfactory," the lawsuit says, and told Goldblum not to send it.

On Feb. 12, a day after the student newspaper published an article about the backlash surrounding the article featuring Houston, Goldblum emailed her letter to the newspaper. The lawsuit says she did that to fulfill her role as Title IX coordinator and to provide resources to anyone affected by the article. It says she notified Marshall in advance.

The letter was never published, and the lawsuit says Marshall was "angry" Goldblum had sent it.

According to the lawsuit, although university officials initially didn't alter the Arts and Sciences profile featuring Houston, the section on him ultimately was removed.

The lawsuit says Goldblum started an informal investigation into what university officials knew about Houston’s background before he was admitted as a student and before he was given the award.

On March 15, the lawsuit says Goldblum was called into a meeting in Marshall's office. Also at the meeting were a human resources representative and a police officer. Goldblum was told to resign or be fired, the lawsuit says.

She resigned, although the lawsuit says she wasn't given a reasonable time to decide what to do.

Goldblum's attorney, Josh Engel, said in an interview that the investigation could have found university officials did nothing wrong, that it was appropriate to admit Houston and give him the award. Under the law, he said, Goldblum can't be punished for looking into it.

"She was terminated because she was asking too many questions, in our view, about this matter," Engel said.

Originally Published 3:47 p.m. CDT May 29, 2019

Updated 22 hours ago

Addendum: Goldblum responded to me on LinkedIn, and I find her to be dishonest:

Actually, Derek, this was not about denying students any rights or assuming someone is a danger. It was not about automatically accepting or not accepting convicted felons or registered sex offenders.  Instead it was about processes that Cincinnati did not have in place for asking the right questions and doing a fair and complete risk assessment and basing decisions on those.

It was also about ensuring people who have been harmed being offered the resources they need and that we were required to provide under federal law. Finally, it is about not trying to sweep things under the rug, due to short-term thinking.

I am no longer at UC because I suffered retaliation for complying with a federal civil rights law, which was my job description, after all. University of Cincinnati is the disgrace for engaging in retaliation and for ignoring federal law and the needs of its faculty, staff and students.

Making assumptions based on brief media articles or social media is always a chancy thing. There is always more to the story.  I am glad I have the opportunity to clarify this for you.

Ron Book's "Influence" also applies to his preferred substance he drives under

In 2002, the NISMART-2 estimated 45 worst case "stereo kidnappings" happened that year, the kind that permeates headlines and ends in death or permanently missing.

In 2017, a total of 1,147 children 14 and younger were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes. Of those 1,147 fatalities, 220 (19%) occurred in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes. Out of those 220 deaths, 118 (54%) were occupants of vehicles with drivers who had BACs of .08 or higher, and another 29 children (13%) were pedestrians or pedal-cyclists struck by drivers with BACs of .08 or higher. 71 (32%) were occupants of other vehicles, and 2 (1%) were drivers.

What that means is that your child is statistically more likely to die at the hands of a drunk driver than a kidnapper, much less a registered person (which is barely 5% of sex crime arrests on average).

Imagine Ron Book, the millionaire head of the Miami-Dade Homeless Trust, driving around the city in an overpriced Lamborghini, drunk as a skunk, gets involved in a wreck in which the car Ron hit flipped. He failed THREE field sobriety tests. He REFUSED to take the breathalyzer.

If Ron Book is trying to claim his meds made him drive erratically, as he told one reporter, then:

1. Has Book had cancer for a decade? Other media reports found a decade worth of Book citations for reckless driving.

2. Are we honestly expectedd to believe the "most powerful lobbyist" who makes millions of dollars can't read a prescription label warning of drowsiness or not to drive while taking the meds?

3. Why would Book refuse a breathalyzer test if you are sober?

4. Why lie to the police about how he caused the accident?

https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-lobbyist-ron-book-arrested-for-alleged-dui-11096630

Miami Lobbyist Ron Book Arrested for Alleged DUI
JERRY IANNELLI | FEBRUARY 25, 2019 | 2:22PM

Ron Book, one of the most powerful lobbyists in Florida, was arrested Sunday for DUI, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office online arrest database. Book is one of the most influential behind-the-scenes political figures in the state. In addition to being the lobbyist for powerful private firms such as the prison giant GEO Group, Book is also the official lobbyist for Miami-Dade County.

The Sun Sentinel first reported news of Book's arrest after a car rolled over on I-595 near Nob Hill Road. According to BSO's online records, Book was slapped with two charges: driving under the influence and damaging someone else's property. He also allegedly refused to take a Breathalyzer test. Book's bail was set at $1,500. He bonded out that night.

Notably, Book spends a great deal of time admonishing others — specifically the homeless — for similar conduct. He chairs Miami-Dade County's Homeless Trust, a position he holds despite having no background in social work, addiction therapy, or any other relevant social scientific study.

He routinely fights public programs designed to make life easier for the homeless. For example, Book once argued against the addition of more public bathrooms in Miami-Dade because in his view, making life "easier" for the homeless makes it harder for the county to reform them.

Book also drew criticism in 2017 for encouraging the arrest of homeless people as a way to give them "shelter" during Hurricane Irma. He also became nationally known as the lobbyist who put sex offenders under a bridge after New Times discovered that sex-offender-residency laws he championed forced a group of Miami's homeless sex offenders to live beneath the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

It's unlikely that Book's arrest will affect his numerous Florida lobbying gigs. This is not his first run-in with the law: In 1986, he was charged with insurance fraud after he allegedly overstated by $10,000 the value of a car that had allegedly been stolen. Book pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and received no prison time.

Book then launched a volley of illegal political donations to local and state candidates. New Times columnist Jim DeFede wrote in 1995: "Having been scandalized in the Eighties, barely escaping the decade without a criminal conviction, and knowing that police and prosecutors were just waiting for him to trip up again, Ron Book chose to blatantly violate state law by funneling more than $30,000 in illegal campaign contributions to at least a dozen of his political cronies in state and county government. He did this not in a single campaign season, but year after year, over and over again."

He pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor charges, paid a $2,000 fine, and agreed to donate $40,000 to charity. Book, a lawyer, narrowly avoided being disbarred.

In the years since, he's become a lobbyist for Boca Raton's GEO Group, a private company that turns a profit from the arrest and incarceration of others.

That bottle beside Ron isn't cancer medicine

"Poissoning" the Pot: The Dark Figure of Grossly Overestimating Sex Crime Recidivism with Nicholas Scurich and Richard S. John

Today we have a grossly biased "research paper by two complete buffoons with Ph. Ds, which in this instance stands for Piled High and Deep.

Just who are these two twits, you ask? The offensive paper, "The Dark Figure of Sexual Recidivism", was written by Nicholas Scurich and Richard S. John

Richard S. John is associate professor of psychology and a research associate at the Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on normative and descriptive models of human judgment and decision making and methodological issues in application of decision and probabilistic risk analysis (PRA). He has consulted on a number of large projects involving expert elicitation, including analysis of nuclear power plant risks (NUREG 1150) and analysis of cost and schedule risk for tritium supply alternatives.

Nicholas Scurich, PhD, is "a tenured professor of Psychology and Criminology at the University of California, Irvine. In 2017 he joined TAG ("Threat Assessment Group") as a consultant and lecturer in workplace misconduct mitigation. Dr. Scurich's focus on misconduct risk assessment has included scientific studies of how to assess the risk of misconduct, how to deter dangerous behavior, how to make scientifically informed decisions about risky individuals, and how to communicate risk information. He frequently consults for the Department of Homeland Security on issues related to risk assessment and security. For example, he has worked with the TSA to help develop novel approaches to allocating security resources and screening of airline passengers based on risk."

IF YOU JUST WANT THE SHORT STORY-- Scurich works for a business that pimps threat assessment tests to other big business, and John works for a hokey anti-terrorism program for USC. Both work with the second dumbest and most useless creation of the Bush Administration (the AWA being first), the Department of Homeland Security.

Tweedle Scurich and Tweedle John wrote a crappy research paper, published it on SSRN, then wrote a press release in hopes of getting some cheap publicity.

I suggest you check out the Sentencing Typepad blog to read more, and to a link to the offensive report:

https://sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2019/02/the-dark-figure-of-sexual-recidivism.html

"The Dark Figure of Sexual Recidivism"

The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Nicholas Scurich and Richard John now available via SSRN.  Here is its abstract:

Empirical studies of sexual offender recidivism have proliferated in recent decades. Virtually all of the studies define recidivism as a new legal charge or conviction for a sexual crime, and these studies tend to find recidivism rates on the order of 5-15% after 5 years and 10-25% after 10+ years.  It is uncontroversial that such a definition of recidivism underestimates the true rate of sexual recidivism because most sexual crime is not reported to legal authorities, the so-called “dark figure of crime.”

To estimate the magnitude of the dark figure of sexual recidivism, this paper uses a probabilistic simulation approach in conjunction with a.) victim self-report survey data about the rate of reporting sexual crime to legal authorities, b.) offender self-report data about the number of victims per offender, and c.) different assumptions about the chances of being convicted of a new sexual offense once it is reported.  Under any configuration of assumptions, the dark figure is substantial, and as a consequence, the disparity between recidivism defined as a new legal charge or conviction for a sex crime and recidivism defined as actually committing a new sexual crime is large.  These findings call into question the utility of recidivism studies that rely exclusively on official crime statistics to define sexual recidivism, and highlight the need for additional, long-term studies that use a variety of different measures to assess whether or not sexual recidivism has occurred.


My email sent to the duo that wrote this sorry excuse of a "research paper", obviously not expecting a response:

You report is a pile of bovine excrement. Your report has numerous fatal flaws:

1. You actually rely on the Prentky and Langevin studies, and you flagrantly ignore the fact both these studies were thoroughly debunked, and even Prentky himself says his study is not indicative of overall sex crime rates. The Langevin study purged non-recidivists from their study. Using two studies that utilized only high-risk previously recidivist offenders to come up with a recidivism rate for ALL SOs is stat manipulation.

2. Multinational studies don't take into account that the legal definitions of sex crimes vary greatly among nations. At the time of the writing of the Harris and Hanson study, the AoC for Canada was 14 but is 16-18 in the USA, so having agreed upon relations with a woman between 15-17 is illegal in the US depending on the state.

3. Whether you intend this or not, your article implies every sex crime must be the result of recidivists. At the least, you failed to mention anywhere in your report otherwise.

4. Ahlmeyer's reports relying on polygraphs is laughable. We all know that any reports relying on such pseudoscience is skewed. We all know polys don't work, and those studied by them were given ample incentives to "cooperate" with the study. That's why the Butner study was debunked, because they got BUSTED for that. It is a well known fact that polygraphs don't detect lies but polygraphers/ witch doctors use them to make assumptions, or worse yet, to scare people into making them say what the polygrapher wants to hear. A person who knows he's not getting out of lockup will certainly put on a show to get a favorable outcome such as a better living arrangement for complying with a program he knows is BS.

5. Abel's study is flawed, and it seems to me you don't understand the difference between paraphilic acts and pedophilic acts. Abel's study considered all manners of what was considered deviant acts, including homosexual acts between consenting parties. And, you are seeming assuming each act means one different victim every time. Even Abel concluded that most offenders who committed the same acts repeatedly had those same acts with the same one or two people. You obviously cherry-picked the highest, scariest sounding stat from that flawed study for a reason.

6. You fail to consider the fact that these studies of underreporting OVERESTIMATE something as being a crime. First, the NCVS allows for the checkmarking of incidents where a person merely "feels" or assumes that a sexual assault is imminent, even if nothing happened but this mere assumption. Actions once considered merely annoyances like looking too long at a woman or whistling at a woman's beauty can be considered sexual harassment in today's MeToo era, and many feminists consider that a form of "rape." Obviously due to no police investigation, there's NO WAY to know if a person reporting an incident is reporting an actual crime or just an annoying or an assumption. The 2004 Hanson and Harris study discussed the difficulty in addressing underreporting long before the explosion of sexual misconduct  claims in the latter half of the 2010s: “The Besserer and Trainor (2000) study showed that sexual assault had the highest percentage of incidents that were not reported to police (78%).  When respondents were asked why they did not report sexual victimization to the police, 59% of the respondents stated that the “incident was not important enough” to report.  Consequently, readers may wonder what counts as a sexual assault. The Besserer and Trainor (2000) victimization study used a very broad definition of sexual assault.  They counted all attempts at forced sexual activity, all unwanted sexual touching, grabbing, kissing, and fondling, as well as threats of sexual assault (Jennifer Tuffs, personal communication, January 15, 2003). Their broad definition undoubtedly included some behaviours that do not conform to the popular image of a sexual offence. All unwanted sexual advances are wrong, possibly criminal, and have the potential to do psychological harm to the victim.  As a society, however, we need to decide whether we wish to count an unwanted touch on the buttocks as an unreported sexual crime.  Coming to an agreement on what constitutes a sexual crime will be a difficult task.”

7. You don't seem to realize there's something called a false report. That's a pretty damned good explanation for the discrepancy between rearrest rates and reconviction rates and one that should be given greater consideration.

You cannot ASS-U-ME that the "majority" of recidivism goes unreported. It is arrogant to make that claim no matter what kind of stat manipulation you used.

You article is the shittiest excuse of research I've seen in a long time, and I'd love to know which victim advocate group funded this tripe.

ADDENDUM: A very thorough critique of this paper can be found at http://sosen.org/blog/2019/02/19/the-dark-figure-of-sex-offense-recidivism-overestimation-an-exercise-in-myth-busting.html

Amy Stillahn of Colorado wants all registered citizens to register for life no matter how petty the offense

Just what the world doesn't need, yet another skinny blonde professional victim who thinks she's a model advocating for more registry laws.

She says she wants it to "be over" and to have her "life" back yet she obsesses over this issue and wants to harm others in the process. That's not how moving on works.

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/contact7/hundreds-of-sex-offenders-get-their-names-taken-off-the-sex-offender-registry-every-year-in-colorado

Hundreds of sex offenders get their names taken off the sex offender registry every year in Colorado
Sex offender gets off registry, despite victim's plea
Posted: 3:13 PM, Feb 04, 2019  Updated: 5:20 PM, Feb 04, 2019

By: Jaclyn Allen

A Contact7 investigation found that in the state of Colorado, hundreds of sex offenders are getting off the sex offender registry every year. In one case, a felony sex offender's motion was granted even after his victim pleaded against it.

While Denver7 generally doesn't identify victims of sex crimes, Amy Stillahn wants her story told and wants people to know what she has been through.

"He stole something from me, absolutely," she said, speaking for the first time publicly about the then-21-year-old lacrosse coach at Arapahoe High School, Matthew Buck, who she first met in an AOL chat room in 2000 when she was only 14 years old.

"It was on the playground," she said. "That pea gravel, I remember it sticking to my skin on my bottom, and I was just like, 'I don't want to do this.' It's destroyed and shattered my life."

That year, Buck pleaded guilty to attempted sex assault on a child by a person in a position of trust for the crime.

After the charges became public, Stillahn said she went from popular cheerleader at Arapahoe High School to social outcast — overnight.

"Kids put together the crying girl in the counseling office was the one on the news, and I was being called a slut," she said, the emotions still raw almost two decades later. "I had no friends; it was so hurtful."

In the fallout, she tried to end her life for the first time, and a lifelong battle with anorexia and depression began. She dropped out of the high school and was home schooled, never going to college.

"I think about dying every day," she said. "So often, I just want it to be over."

In stark contrast, Buck's story also takes a dramatic turn after the criminal charge.

After he went to prison in 2005 on a probation violation, the son of an attorney went to law school, passed the Colorado bar and now practices law in Denver, focusing on marijuana and criminal defense, according to his firm's web site.

"It is not common [for felons to practice law in Colorado], but it does occasionally happen," said Jessica Yates, Colorado's attorney regulation counsel, who said attorneys must meet character and fitness standards.

Records obtained by Denver7 from a recent court transcript show prosecutors said Buck downplayed his conviction to the bar, stating he "was involved in a romantic relationship with a high school student."

"I met him twice and he raped me. No. We did not have a romantic relationship," Stillahn said. Stillahn added that at 14, no sexual relationship with an adult in a position of trust could be considered consensual.

John Gleason was the attorney regulation counsel for Colorado in 2011 and said the bar admission system then was dramatically different. His office took over shortly afterwards, he said, implementing a more thorough investigative process.

"To say that Mr. Buck would not be admitted under the current character and fitness evaluation process is pure speculation," Gleason said. "What I would say is that based on my experience, his application would receive a much different evaluation, a much more thorough evaluation...I’m not aware of any other case that is as significant a crime as this."

Buck became an attorney, but he was still a registered sex offender, until he filed a motion to de-register last year.

"This was the last thing I was expecting, and didn't know it was possible," Stillahn said.

Under Colorado law, certain sex offenses must stay on the sex offender registry for life, but Buck pleaded down to attempted child sex assault by a person in a position of trust, which is eligible for de-registration after ten years.

"I just think it was probably a loophole that was inadvertently created by the legislature," said former Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey. Morrissey said he believed attempted sex crimes should be included on the list of crimes not allowed to be de-registered. "I think somebody could take this up and should take this up because again, I think it’s a loophole that they did not intend to have. "

Denver7 found hundreds of sex offenders de-register every year in Colorado, and while Morrissey speculated that many are deferred sentences or misdemeanor sex crimes, he said some may be "attempted" crime felony offenders who should be monitored.

"Also, I don’t think people should use the registry as gospel on whether someone is a sex offender or not because an awful lot of of sex offenders get off the registry," he said.

Buck said he did not wish to comment, stating that he had two daughters, and court transcripts show he stated they were the reason he filed to de-register.

Christopher Decker, a criminal defense attorney in Denver, said many sex offenders have been targeted because of registries.

"They have been assaulted. Their houses have been burned down. Their children have been ostracized in schools," said Decker, who has worked with the Colorado Criminal Defense Institute Project offering free legal services around the state for those who qualify to de-register. "I think what's going here is society is beginning to look more carefully at how and why and when we should require someone to register and what are we really getting from this registration."

Decker said the constitutionality of registries is now being challenged in federal court, and many states are looking a modifying them.

"When you have a system that treats everybody the same, bad things happen and some good people get caught up and some bad people don’t get caught up enough," Decker said.

Under Colorado's Victim's Rights Act, a petition to discontinue registration is defined as a critical stage, so victims have a right to be informed of and present for the criminal justice process. Also, to find out if a sex offender has filed a motion, the criminal case number associated with the defendant's conviction is the same case number for the petition to de-register.

So, Stillahn faced Buck for the first time to fight his motion to de-register, speaking out in court and telling her story.

However, Judge Phillip Douglass eventually granted the request , citing Buck's law license as a factor in his decision. Denver7 tried to reach Douglass by phone several times, with no response. He was voted off the bench last year, but he granted the request last month before his term ended.

We checked, and in the 18th Judicial District, where this happened, the majority of de-registration motions were granted last year. In 2018, of the 23 motions to de-register that were filed, 14 were granted, seven were denied and two are still waiting for hearings.

Stillahn wants the law allowing felony sex offenders to de-register changed and wants to warn others about sex offenders no longer on the registry. Really, though, she just wants her life back.

"Everything that has happened all stems back to Matthew Buck," Stillahn said. "What if that had never happened?"

Chris Hansen's ego is writing checks his body can't cash...

Hansen's MUGSHOT LOL

...nor can his bank account cover the costs, apparently. Take a seat, Chrissy!

Apparently, Chrissy's gig at Crime Watch Daily wasn't very profitable.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/celebrity/%E2%80%98to-catch-a-predator%E2%80%99-host-chris-hansen-charged-with-bouncing-checks/ar-BBSkBLm?li=BBnb7Kz

‘To Catch a Predator’ Host Chris Hansen Charged With Bouncing Checks

To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen was arrested and charged on Monday, January 14, after being accused of issuing bad checks, the Stamford Police Department in Connecticut confirms to Us Weekly.

According to police, the 59-year-old asked Promotional Sales Limited owner Peter Psichopaidas for 355 ceramic mugs, 288 T-shirts and 650 vinyl decals to use at marketing events. Psichopaidas said the merchandise was delivered in 2017, but Hansen failed to pay the bill of $12,998.05.

An arrest affidavit obtained by The Advocate claimed that the store received a check for the entire amount, but it bounced. Hansen apologized to Psichopaidas and attempted to make a partial payment. By April 2018, the store owner still had not received the money so he filed a complaint with police.

An investigator reportedly called Hansen, but the TV host never showed up at the police station. The newspaper reported that Hansen later promised Psichopaidas that his wife would drop off a check, but she never came either.

Investigator Sean Coughlin said in the affidavit: “I told Chris that I understood that he may have trouble, but that nearly $13,000 is a lot of money to a ‘mom-and-pop’ business and it is not fair that he accepted the material but hasn’t paid for it.”

Psichopaidas received a personal check from Hansen for $13,200 later that April, but it bounced three days after, according to The Advocate. The business owner then fired off an email to Hansen that read: “Peter … I truly thought I had this covered. I am scrambling to get it done. Please give me till the end of the day. I sold a boat to cover the rest of this and need to pick up the payment this afternoon.”

Hansen never sent another check. He turned himself in to police on Monday and was charged with issuing a bad check. He was released without bond after signing a written promise to appear in court.

The journalist hosted To Catch a Predator on MSNBC from 2004 to 2007. He now hosts Investigation Discovery’s Killer Instinct and the syndicated show Crime Watch Daily.

Elizabeth Smart gets the first nomination for a 2019 Shiitake Award for supporting residency restrictions

I love to start off the annual Shiitake Award nominations each year with a bang, so for the 2019 awards, who better to get the first nomination for the new year than a famous professional victim?

I get it, Smart holds a grudge against this woman, but Smart comes out as a proponent of idiotic residency restrictions, and that makes her Shiitake-worthy.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-smart-wanda-barzee-elementary-school_us_5c2bc8bde4b05c88b70373bd

Elizabeth Smart Unhappy Her Kidnapper Is Living Near An Elementary School
Registered sex offender Wanda Barzee was released from a Utah prison in September.
headshot
By David Lohr

lizabeth Smart is upset the registered sex offender who helped abduct her when she was a teenager is living near a Utah elementary school.

“Whether a person is deemed a current threat or if they have a history of child abuse, neglect, sexual violence, etc., prudent measures should be taken, including housing them as far away as possible from schools, families and community centers,” Smart said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press.

According to Utah’s sex offender registry, Wanda Barzee, 73, is living in a Salt Lake City apartment located about one-tenth of a mile from Parkview Elementary School. The school has students from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Smart was 14 in June 2002, when she was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City home by Barzee and her then-husband, Brian Mitchell. Smart was held captive for nine months, during which time she was threatened and sexually abused. Her ordeal ended in March 2003 when a viewer of “America’s Most Wanted” spotted the trio in Sandy, Utah, and notified police.

Mitchell is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and raping Smart. Barzee was paroled in September after serving less than a decade behind bars. She was released despite refusing to take a psychological exam while incarcerated.

“It is incomprehensible how someone who has not cooperated with her mental health evaluations or risk assessments and someone who did not show up to her own parole hearing can be released into our community,” Smart said at the time.

Barzee, who is required to be under federal supervision for the next five years, does not appear to be violating any laws with her current living arrangements. The conditions of her release do not specify how close she can live to a school, according to The Associated Press.

Utah state law does require registered sex offenders whose victims were 18 or younger not to live within 500 feet of schools. However, Mapquest indicates the shortest route from Barzee’s apartment to the elementary school is roughly 528 feet.

Still, Smart, now 31 and married with three children, would like to see individuals such as Barzee kept farther away from places frequented by children.

“Every possible caution and protection should be taken when it comes to protecting our children,” Smart told the AP.