It is against the law to use the registry to harass registrants. It is posted on the Utah Registry website's terms and conditions. So "Brittney" (Likely real name, Brittney Passey/ Brittney Oliver) is using social media to engage in a harassment campaign, not unlike the vigilante group ultimately responsible for the murder of a registered person in Omaha.
https://www.ksl.com/article/46767720/daughter-warns-public-before-convicted-sex-offender-moves-to-magna
Daughter warns public before convicted sex offender moves to Magna
By Morgan Wolfe, KSL TV | Posted - Jun. 21, 2020 at 8:21 p.m.
6PM: Daughter warns public before convicted sex offender moves to MagnaMorgan Wolfe, KSL TV
MAGNA — A Utah woman is warning the Magna community about her father, a registered child sex offender, before he moves to a neighborhood on the west side of Salt Lake County.
Bret Riley is a convicted child sex offender that lives within a mile from a school, and less than three-fourths of a mile from the Magna Community Center.
His daughter Brittney, who requested that KSL not use her last name, is now pushing for change on where sex offenders can live.
“These perpetrators need to be held responsible, not only from the judicial systems, but by our communities,” Brittney said.
Brittney said Riley was convicted of sexually assaulting her daughter in 2016. She found out last Friday that he was going to be released early under supervision this past Tuesday.
“Nobody contacted us, asked us if we lived around that area,” she said.
Brittney said she learned he was living within walking distance from a park, school and church — all things that he’s legally not allowed to be at as a registered child sex offender.
So she posted a warning to the community in a Facebook group.
“It shouldn’t be the responsibility of the victims to follow them,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to have to go through what we went through.”
After calling the state, KSL’s Morgan Wolfe was told by a department of corrections spokesperson that sex offenders don’t have any living restrictions in Utah — meaning it is okay for Riley to live less than a mile from the park, school and church.
“I imagine there are a lot more sex offenders living around here than we know about,” one neighbor said.
Ninety-one to be exact in Magna according to the Utah sex offender registry that we searched. It still stated Riley was incarcerated.
Brittney was doing what she could to inform the public and recommended everyone check the sex offender registry.
But she still wanted the state to make some changes.
“I really feel like we need a better system,” she said.
Blogroll of nominees for the Annual Shiitake Awards, which spotlights the dumbest "sex offender-related stories of the year." The Shiitake Awards is a project of Once Fallen. For a full description of the Shiitake Awards and its mission, or to learn how to submit a nominee, click on the "About the Shiitake Awards" tab. Articles on this site fall under Fair Use Doctrine (Copyright Act of 1976, 17 USC 107) for purposes related to news, information, and social commentary.
Monday, June 22, 2020
Monday, June 8, 2020
The "Reverend" Ashley Easter apparently traded one cult for another
Rev. Ashley Easter sporting the Feminist cult's official hairdo. |
Among other things, she is among those who believe everyone forced to register should be banned from attending church services, which makes her Shiitake-worthy. I've seen better representations of Christianity for The Jerry Springer Show's Reverend Schnorr than from this false prophet.
https://www.theoaklandpress.com/lifestyles/southern-baptist-presidents-church-abuse-policies-under-fire/article_d1b97d26-a689-11ea-a826-6f72c145db49.html
Summers and the Rev. Ashley Easter, a spokeswoman for the group of abuse survivor advocates, also criticized a policy within the SBC's Caring Well resources. That document, they say, is based on a document from Greear's church.
The document outlines how registered sex offenders can be incorporated into worship services if they are monitored by "shepherding individuals" and kept away from children and any person or family member of a person they have harmed.
"Abusers should NOT be allowed on church property during services and certainly not in serving/leadership positions," Easter said.
Brad Hambrick, Summit Church's pastor of counseling, confirmed that Summit has a policy for registered sex offenders.
"Yes, our policy is still to require perpetual supervision and full awareness by the campus security team, elders, and children/student ministry leaders for an individual under RSO status to attend a weekend service," he said. "All involvement or attendance in children or student ministry is prohibited, even if the RSO's children are involved. Any involvement in an adult discipleship setting (i.e., a small group) requires the full awareness of their offense and consent of the adults in that setting."
Abuse advocates held a virtual rally on Tuesday. That same day, denominational leaders held an online " SBC Advance " to update members of the denomination. The denomination's annual meeting was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Rally organizers say they are continuing their call for an official Southern Baptist database of clergy who are convicted or credibly accused sex offenders, as well as more training, a request they say has been "partially fulfilled by the Caring Well curriculum."
Monday, June 1, 2020
Theresa Heller's campaign of harassment is allowed to continue, no thanks to the Michigan Court of Appeals
This lady was mad because she found out a funeral home owner was on the registry (despite not being involved with her child's funeral at all), then started a campaign of slander and harassment. She refers to registered persons as "convicted pedophiles" and blatantly abuses the registry.
Here is the actual decision:
http://publicdocs.courts.mi.gov/OPINIONS/FINAL/COA/20200528_C347505_38_347505.OPN.PDF
Why this piece of shit is not in prison for harassment is beyond me. But this is not a total victory. Only part of the case was overturned.
https://reason.com/2020/06/01/libel-lawsuit-leads-court-to-ban-even-true-statements-about-plaintiffs-sex-offender-status/
Libel Lawsuit Leads Court to Ban Even True Statements About Plaintiff's "Sex Offender Status"
Fortunately, the Michigan Court of Appeals has just reversed that injunction.
EUGENE VOLOKH |THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY | 6.1.2020 8:02 AM
From Thursday's Redmond v. Heller (Mich. Ct. App.) (by Chief Judge Christopher M. Murray, joined by Judges Patrick M. Metter and Kirsten F. Kelly):
The origins of this case arose from the death of Theresa [Heller's] and Dennis [Wolf's] twelve-year-old son, Charles Wolf, in July 2015. The medical examiner's office released Charles's body to [Arthur] McNabb of Redmond Funeral Home on July 28, 2015…. [McNabb was one of the people who prepared the body for the funeral.] …
After Theresa discovered what she considered to be the "outright lies" involved with the investigation into her son's death, she decided to investigate every name associated with the handling of her son's body. She obtained documents from the coroner's office and discovered that McNabb signed for her son's remains, and subsequently discovered that McNabb was a convicted sex offender. Theresa called [Martha] Redmond in the fall of 2015, to warn her about McNabb, and according to Theresa, Redmond lied, and said that she did not know that McNabb was a sex offender.
Police reports associated with McNabb's conviction show that McNabb met a 15-year-old high school student at a computer game store. [The general age of consent for sex in Michigan is 16.-EV] McNabb admitted that he purchased items for the teen, and the teen told an investigating officer that McNabb performed oral sex on him. The reports also suggest that McNabb engaged in grooming behavior, as a witness described McNabb as repeatedly hanging out at an Arby's restaurant, and interacting with a teen. McNabb was convicted of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct [apparently in 2006], and was sentenced to prison.
After his conviction, the Board of Examiners in Mortuary Science Report revoked McNabb's license in November 2007, but the Board reinstated his license in October 2015. At a meeting held in November 2015, Redmond Funeral Home's board of directors appointed McNabb as the funeral director for one of its branch locations….
Theresa and various of her family members started posting various things online about McNabb—but not just about his 2006 conviction:
Theresa's social media posts were not confined to relating details from past events; she explicitly and implicitly asserted that she had actual knowledge that McNabb had continued to violate the law consistent with her belief that sex offenders always reoffend, and that Redmond was facilitating his activities. Instead, each of the statements at issue relate to present time, and were assertions of supposed fact about plaintiffs' current activities.
Redmond, McNabb, and the Redmond Funeral Home sued for libel; the trial court granted summary judgment in their favor, and also issued an injunction (after which the plaintiffs voluntarily dropped their damages claim):
[1.] Defendant Theresa Heller … [is] restrained from speaking, delivering, publishing, emailing or disseminating information in any manner regarding Arthur McNabb's sex offender status, his address and employment status to anyone anywhere.
[2.] Defendant Theresa Heller … [is] enjoined and restrained from defaming, stalking, harassing the plaintiffs, in any manner whatsoever, including through postings on the internet, as well as though unconsented contact with any of the plaintiffs.
The court of appeals rejected (quite rightly, I think), this injunction. Narrow injunctions forbidding the repetition of "specific speech that has already been determined by a finder of fact to be defamatory," the court said, might be restrictable—there's a difference of opinion among courts on the subject, which the court didn't resolve. But this particular injunction "cover[ed] certain speech that would be protected by the First Amendment":
For example, Theresa could speak about whether certain criminal sexual conduct convicts should be working in funeral homes by using McNabb as an example, but relaying only the information contained in the public domain, yet be brought into court for potential contempt hearings. Additionally, Theresa could state other nondefamatory commentary about Redmond and McNabb, or engage in other undefined "harassing" behavior, and be subject to censure by the court. In other words, the injunction potentially covers much more than the specific four statements found to be defamatory, and therefore does not survive constitutional scrutiny under the general antiprior restraint law under the First Amendment, or under the narrow exception recognized by many courts.
The court of appeals concluded, though, that some of the statements were false and defamatory factual assertions, which presumably means that the trial court could possibly issue "a more narrowly tailored injunction" against repeating them (again, the Court of Appeals didn't resolve whether such narrow injunctions would be constitutional):
In their motion for partial summary disposition, … plaintiffs had the burden to show that there was no material factual dispute concerning the elements of their defamation claim, i.e., that Theresa (1) made a false and defamatory statement about plaintiffs, (2) that she was not privileged to make and communicated it to a third party, (3) that she published the communication with fault amounting to, at the least, negligence, and (4) that the statement was actionable without regard to special harm (defamation per se), or that plaintiffs suffered special harm….
[P]laintiffs identified several statements by Theresa that they claimed were false and defamatory. Specifically, in the trial court's decision it cited to plaintiffs' evidence that (1) on April 22, 2017, Theresa stated that she wanted "to spread the word about what happened to Charlie after he left us two summers ago," (2) on July 24, 2017, Theresa posted on Facebook that her son's "cousins and all his friends were exposed to this pervert at Charlie's funeral," and that "he didn't sodomize his customers' children? Some of your kids were at Charlie's funeral. How does that make you feel?", (3) on that same date she stated that McNabb "hunts at fast food places, video and gaming stores, and funeral homes", and (4) on August 13, 2017, Wolf published on the Internet that McNabb "targets young teenage boys who like video games and nice shirts." Plaintiffs also set forth specific allegations and evidence about the frequency of these and other statements, Theresa continually contacting the funeral home and police agencies, and other allegedly harassing behavior….
Upon review of the evidence submitted to the trial court, we conclude that as to the four statements listed above, no reasonable juror could conclude other than that the statements Theresa and Wolf posted to social media were defamatory…. [Theresa] did not couch these accusations as opinions and, even if she had, they clearly implied an assertion of fact that could be proven false. A reasonable fact-finder reading these statements could only conclude that Theresa was asserting that she had knowledge that McNabb was actively and presently hunting for teenaged boys in order to commit criminal sexual conduct, and that he was doing so at Redmond's funeral home with Redmond's knowledge and support….
On appeal, Theresa argues that her statements that McNabb is a pedophile are true because he has a 2006 conviction of criminal sexual conduct involving a 15-year-old boy. She also asserts … that everything she stated came from police reports or the website maintained under the [Sexual Offender Registration Act], and is therefore true. However, all of the documents she cites describe acts that occurred more than 10 years earlier—none of the reports or documents she cites involve present activity. For that reason, evidence as to what is contained on the registry or in police reports is not evidence creating a material issue of fact that her statements were true.
{In MCL 28.721a, the Legislature stated its determination that "a person who has been convicted of committing an offense covered by this act poses a potential serious menace and danger to the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people, and particularly the children, of this state." This legislative policy does not provide private citizens with the unfettered right to assume that all convicted sex offenders were in fact reoffending and, on the basis of that assumption, publicize false accusations of criminal conduct. The same is true of the court decisions that Theresa cites, as they do not stand for the proposition that private persons may make false and defamatory statements about a sex offender's current conduct on the basis of the sex offender's past conduct.} …
[But e]xcept for the statements noted above, the remainder of Theresa's statements were strongly worded, and suggested that McNabb posed an imminent danger to children. The nature of the remarks might justify a reasonable fact-finder in finding that Theresa's remarks were defamatory, or that Theresa was merely expressing her strong belief that a convicted sex offender should not be employed at a funeral home. In other words, a reasonable fact-finder could find that these remaining statements, which were undoubtedly offensive to ordinary sensibilities, were nevertheless hyperbolic, or amounted to exaggerated commentary. Consequently, on those statements, there was a question of material fact as to whether the statements were defamatory, which precluded the trial court from granting plaintiffs' motion for summary disposition in its entirety….
Thanks to Prof. Eric Goldman for the pointer.
Here is the actual decision:
http://publicdocs.courts.mi.gov/OPINIONS/FINAL/COA/20200528_C347505_38_347505.OPN.PDF
Why this piece of shit is not in prison for harassment is beyond me. But this is not a total victory. Only part of the case was overturned.
https://reason.com/2020/06/01/libel-lawsuit-leads-court-to-ban-even-true-statements-about-plaintiffs-sex-offender-status/
Libel Lawsuit Leads Court to Ban Even True Statements About Plaintiff's "Sex Offender Status"
Fortunately, the Michigan Court of Appeals has just reversed that injunction.
EUGENE VOLOKH |THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY | 6.1.2020 8:02 AM
From Thursday's Redmond v. Heller (Mich. Ct. App.) (by Chief Judge Christopher M. Murray, joined by Judges Patrick M. Metter and Kirsten F. Kelly):
The origins of this case arose from the death of Theresa [Heller's] and Dennis [Wolf's] twelve-year-old son, Charles Wolf, in July 2015. The medical examiner's office released Charles's body to [Arthur] McNabb of Redmond Funeral Home on July 28, 2015…. [McNabb was one of the people who prepared the body for the funeral.] …
After Theresa discovered what she considered to be the "outright lies" involved with the investigation into her son's death, she decided to investigate every name associated with the handling of her son's body. She obtained documents from the coroner's office and discovered that McNabb signed for her son's remains, and subsequently discovered that McNabb was a convicted sex offender. Theresa called [Martha] Redmond in the fall of 2015, to warn her about McNabb, and according to Theresa, Redmond lied, and said that she did not know that McNabb was a sex offender.
Police reports associated with McNabb's conviction show that McNabb met a 15-year-old high school student at a computer game store. [The general age of consent for sex in Michigan is 16.-EV] McNabb admitted that he purchased items for the teen, and the teen told an investigating officer that McNabb performed oral sex on him. The reports also suggest that McNabb engaged in grooming behavior, as a witness described McNabb as repeatedly hanging out at an Arby's restaurant, and interacting with a teen. McNabb was convicted of two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct [apparently in 2006], and was sentenced to prison.
After his conviction, the Board of Examiners in Mortuary Science Report revoked McNabb's license in November 2007, but the Board reinstated his license in October 2015. At a meeting held in November 2015, Redmond Funeral Home's board of directors appointed McNabb as the funeral director for one of its branch locations….
Theresa and various of her family members started posting various things online about McNabb—but not just about his 2006 conviction:
Theresa's social media posts were not confined to relating details from past events; she explicitly and implicitly asserted that she had actual knowledge that McNabb had continued to violate the law consistent with her belief that sex offenders always reoffend, and that Redmond was facilitating his activities. Instead, each of the statements at issue relate to present time, and were assertions of supposed fact about plaintiffs' current activities.
Redmond, McNabb, and the Redmond Funeral Home sued for libel; the trial court granted summary judgment in their favor, and also issued an injunction (after which the plaintiffs voluntarily dropped their damages claim):
[1.] Defendant Theresa Heller … [is] restrained from speaking, delivering, publishing, emailing or disseminating information in any manner regarding Arthur McNabb's sex offender status, his address and employment status to anyone anywhere.
[2.] Defendant Theresa Heller … [is] enjoined and restrained from defaming, stalking, harassing the plaintiffs, in any manner whatsoever, including through postings on the internet, as well as though unconsented contact with any of the plaintiffs.
The court of appeals rejected (quite rightly, I think), this injunction. Narrow injunctions forbidding the repetition of "specific speech that has already been determined by a finder of fact to be defamatory," the court said, might be restrictable—there's a difference of opinion among courts on the subject, which the court didn't resolve. But this particular injunction "cover[ed] certain speech that would be protected by the First Amendment":
For example, Theresa could speak about whether certain criminal sexual conduct convicts should be working in funeral homes by using McNabb as an example, but relaying only the information contained in the public domain, yet be brought into court for potential contempt hearings. Additionally, Theresa could state other nondefamatory commentary about Redmond and McNabb, or engage in other undefined "harassing" behavior, and be subject to censure by the court. In other words, the injunction potentially covers much more than the specific four statements found to be defamatory, and therefore does not survive constitutional scrutiny under the general antiprior restraint law under the First Amendment, or under the narrow exception recognized by many courts.
The court of appeals concluded, though, that some of the statements were false and defamatory factual assertions, which presumably means that the trial court could possibly issue "a more narrowly tailored injunction" against repeating them (again, the Court of Appeals didn't resolve whether such narrow injunctions would be constitutional):
In their motion for partial summary disposition, … plaintiffs had the burden to show that there was no material factual dispute concerning the elements of their defamation claim, i.e., that Theresa (1) made a false and defamatory statement about plaintiffs, (2) that she was not privileged to make and communicated it to a third party, (3) that she published the communication with fault amounting to, at the least, negligence, and (4) that the statement was actionable without regard to special harm (defamation per se), or that plaintiffs suffered special harm….
[P]laintiffs identified several statements by Theresa that they claimed were false and defamatory. Specifically, in the trial court's decision it cited to plaintiffs' evidence that (1) on April 22, 2017, Theresa stated that she wanted "to spread the word about what happened to Charlie after he left us two summers ago," (2) on July 24, 2017, Theresa posted on Facebook that her son's "cousins and all his friends were exposed to this pervert at Charlie's funeral," and that "he didn't sodomize his customers' children? Some of your kids were at Charlie's funeral. How does that make you feel?", (3) on that same date she stated that McNabb "hunts at fast food places, video and gaming stores, and funeral homes", and (4) on August 13, 2017, Wolf published on the Internet that McNabb "targets young teenage boys who like video games and nice shirts." Plaintiffs also set forth specific allegations and evidence about the frequency of these and other statements, Theresa continually contacting the funeral home and police agencies, and other allegedly harassing behavior….
Upon review of the evidence submitted to the trial court, we conclude that as to the four statements listed above, no reasonable juror could conclude other than that the statements Theresa and Wolf posted to social media were defamatory…. [Theresa] did not couch these accusations as opinions and, even if she had, they clearly implied an assertion of fact that could be proven false. A reasonable fact-finder reading these statements could only conclude that Theresa was asserting that she had knowledge that McNabb was actively and presently hunting for teenaged boys in order to commit criminal sexual conduct, and that he was doing so at Redmond's funeral home with Redmond's knowledge and support….
On appeal, Theresa argues that her statements that McNabb is a pedophile are true because he has a 2006 conviction of criminal sexual conduct involving a 15-year-old boy. She also asserts … that everything she stated came from police reports or the website maintained under the [Sexual Offender Registration Act], and is therefore true. However, all of the documents she cites describe acts that occurred more than 10 years earlier—none of the reports or documents she cites involve present activity. For that reason, evidence as to what is contained on the registry or in police reports is not evidence creating a material issue of fact that her statements were true.
{In MCL 28.721a, the Legislature stated its determination that "a person who has been convicted of committing an offense covered by this act poses a potential serious menace and danger to the health, safety, morals, and welfare of the people, and particularly the children, of this state." This legislative policy does not provide private citizens with the unfettered right to assume that all convicted sex offenders were in fact reoffending and, on the basis of that assumption, publicize false accusations of criminal conduct. The same is true of the court decisions that Theresa cites, as they do not stand for the proposition that private persons may make false and defamatory statements about a sex offender's current conduct on the basis of the sex offender's past conduct.} …
[But e]xcept for the statements noted above, the remainder of Theresa's statements were strongly worded, and suggested that McNabb posed an imminent danger to children. The nature of the remarks might justify a reasonable fact-finder in finding that Theresa's remarks were defamatory, or that Theresa was merely expressing her strong belief that a convicted sex offender should not be employed at a funeral home. In other words, a reasonable fact-finder could find that these remaining statements, which were undoubtedly offensive to ordinary sensibilities, were nevertheless hyperbolic, or amounted to exaggerated commentary. Consequently, on those statements, there was a question of material fact as to whether the statements were defamatory, which precluded the trial court from granting plaintiffs' motion for summary disposition in its entirety….
Thanks to Prof. Eric Goldman for the pointer.
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