Losing track of sex offenders

Sex offenders are supposed to register with the state, but a Dallas Morning News investigation found that one in six is hiding behind phony or outdated information

11:52 AM CDT on Sunday, October 1, 2006

By EMILY RAMSHAW / The Dallas Morning News

Texas' online sex offender registry – intended to alert communities to potential predators – is highly inaccurate, filled with phony and outdated addresses that permit thousands of offenders to elude authorities and escape public scrutiny.

A Dallas Morning News investigation into the state database, which parents, school districts and neighborhood associations increasingly rely on, found that roughly one in six North Texas sex offenders does not live at the addresses to which they're registered.

DMN

Courtney, who asked that her last name not be used, was attacked by registered sex offender Andres Mata in 2003.

In all, 46 percent of the sex offenders in The News' study could not be located through a combination of certified mail and phone calls. Dallas County and the city of Dallas had the highest percentages of incorrect addresses among their North Texas peers.

Experts say the data disaster is attributable to an unwieldy and ever-growing sex offender registry, one driven more by state politics in recent years than by scientific evidence. Legislators are calling on local police departments to track more sex offenders – many of them low-risk – than ever before, without including the money necessary to do so.

The number of unaccounted-for sex offenders "is far higher than we want, but we're doing the best we can with what we have," said Lt. C.L. Williams, who heads the Dallas Police Department's Crimes Against Children Unit. "There are sex offenders I know for a fact are not where they're supposed to be. And with more people, I could track them down. But I've seen the command staff wrestle with how to allocate resources."

The result? Vigilant parents and community groups are relying on faulty or incomplete data to protect themselves. Some homeowners are targeted as sex offenders because their addresses mistakenly appear in the database. And hundreds of the region's sex offenders are avoiding registration or filing false information with law enforcement agencies – some to hide in the crowd, others to re-offend.

It happened to Courtney, who asked that her last name be withheld. In April 2003, the 23-year-old was raped as she walked from her parking garage to her apartment near the Dallas Farmers Market.

The man who sprung from the shadows, who left purple strangulation bruises around her throat, who scraped her back raw against the asphalt floor, who left her sobbing, hyperventilating and vomiting all at once, was Andres Mata.

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Checking up on registered sex offenders

Local, state and national sex offender registries:
• Texas Sex Offender Registry
• National Sex Offender Public Registry
•

He's a convicted child molester with a rap sheet of other drug, weapon and assault charges – "the worst, scariest guy I've ever tried," Dallas Assistant District Attorney Marshall McCallum said. At the time of Courtney's assault, Mr. Mata was out of prison and listed on both Dallas' and the state's sex offender registry. While most sex offenders are categorized by risk, Mr. Mata had no assigned risk level, meaning he wasn't subject to special supervision.

The Dallas Morning News typically does not identify sex assault victims.

The DNA sample collected in Courtney's rape kit was a perfect match to the DNA on file with Mr. Mata's sex offender registration. But it took seven months to complete the analysis and make the link.

After that, Courtney said, Mr. Mata sent authorities on a wild goose chase, the result of bad addresses and outdated employers listed in Mr. Mata's sex offender registration.

"He was registered, but he used fake, out-of-date addresses. The police went to his employer, who said they hadn't seen him in three years," said Courtney, who left Dallas shortly after her assault. "Until my case came up, no one even knew they'd lost track of him."

Since 1991, Texas law has required sex offenders to keep addresses and other personal information on file with the state. In 1995, legislators made local police departments responsible for maintaining this ever-changing data – and for updating new information to the Texas Department of Public Safety's statewide database. That database now feeds a new national sex offender registry, home to some 566,000 registered sex offenders across the U.S.

But over its last several sessions, the Texas Legislature has made that task more and more daunting.

The state's registry, once home to criminals convicted of one of four specific and grievous crimes, has grown to include people charged with nearly 20 offenses and sex offenders, even juveniles, serving deferred adjudication for low-level sex crimes. Many adult offenders who used to be required to register for 10 years now must register for life. And the Texas registry has nearly 46,000 people on it, up from 8,000 in 1999 – with more than 100 new registrants each week.

The data in the state registry went online in 1999. With President Bush's signing this summer of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, which will dramatically expand the national sex offender registry, this information is more visible and publicly accessible than ever before.

But the registries are only as good as the law enforcement agencies collecting and verifying the data. And for local police departments, sex offender registration remains an overwhelming task. It's important in theory, but it's not the top priority when resources are short.

"When you have a choice between stopping drug crime and knocking on doors to check for sex offenders, it's not a hard choice," said Timothy Bray, a criminologist at UT-Dallas. "We mistakenly feel safe. But the opportunities for error are just rampant. We don't know where many of these people are."

A three-month Dallas Morning News investigation into 1,625 of North Texas' 6,776 sex offenders reveals that:

•Eighteen percent of Dallas County offenders provided nonexistent addresses, are no longer living at the address they're registered to, or never lived at the address.

•Another 32 percent could not be located by both certified mail and repeated phone calls.

•Collin, Denton, Rockwall and Tarrant counties performed slightly better than Dallas County.

•Of the region's biggest cities, Dallas also had the greatest proportion of wrong addresses, at 22 percent. Arlington and Denton followed, with 20 percent and 17 percent bad addresses, respectively.

DPD's approach

The Dallas Police Department takes sex offender registration seriously. It's got a staffed registration unit charged with maintaining the city's sex offender data. And in 1997, the department created one of the nation's first "sex offender apprehension program" units – whose officers conduct surveillance, perform compliance checks, and make arrests for sex offender probation and registration violations. With limited resources, this program focuses first on high-risk offenders, Lt. Williams said.

But it's no secret that big-city police departments struggle to keep up with sex offenders. Before The News' investigation, Dallas police had determined that about 3 percent of the department's 3,300 sex offenders had gone underground – meaning authorities had no clear idea where they were.

And maintaining the ever-expanding local registry is a data nightmare. Hundreds of sex offenders report address and other logistical changes every month. Dozens more show up for registry checks each week. While registered sex offenders are required to verify addresses with utility bills or official Texas identification, "believe it or not, these people will lie," said Sgt. Irving Porter, who oversees the special sex offender unit.

"You've got sex offenders getting evicted every other week, moving, coming in to make changes, and by the time we've forwarded the data to Austin, they've moved again," Sgt. Porter said. "It's a population that changes at the drop of a dime."

'Transient people'

Despite Dallas' efforts, Police Chief David Kunkle said, it's no surprise the city's sex offenders are some of the most elusive in the region. Dallas has more poverty, more "transient people who already don't manage their affairs very well," than other cities, he said.

"Not all sex offenders look the same as far as their willingness to comply with registration," he said. "The fact that you don't see anybody in your neighborhood on the registry shouldn't give you a false sense of security."

Philip Taylor, a Dallas sex offender treatment counselor, said that when he searches the 75207 ZIP code – home of Dallas' Wayback halfway house – on the registry, he recognizes men he counseled years ago who have long since moved away.

"These are guys who have left the state, who have fallen through the cracks," he said. The database "is often erroneous. It's so hard to keep it accurate."

Robert Paul Bhuiyan and Darren Jenkins know this firsthand. They moved into a tidy white cottage on Denton's Scripture Street a year ago and loved it so much they hoped to buy it. But as they plowed through online appraisals, school district maps and state crime Web sites, they made a harrowing discovery.

"I said, 'Look how many sex offenders there are in our neighborhood!'" Mr. Bhuiyan said.

"And then," Mr. Jenkins said, "we found our house."

Their address is registered to a man convicted of sexual assault in the late 1990s who hasn't lived at the house in years. Mr. Bhuiyan and Mr. Jenkins called the Denton police, expecting a quick fix.

"They told us the state registry never gets updated and that it's no one person's job to investigate it," Mr. Bhuiyan said. "They said, 'There's nothing we can do.' "

Denton police said they weren't familiar with Mr. Bhuiyan's case and would look into it. A quick comparison of their own database with the state registry showed Denton's records were accurate – and the state's were not.

Officer Jim Bryan, the department's spokesman, said sex offender changes are made to Denton's internal system within 24 hours. Getting them onto the state registry is tougher, he said; it takes patience and a lot of mailed paperwork.

"We have control of our own Web site, and we can make a change fairly quickly," he said. "I'd tell your readers if they want accurate information, they should start with the local police department."

Meanwhile, Mr. Bhuiyan and Mr. Jenkins wait – and worry. The sex offender registered to their home has a Hispanic surname. Mr. Bhuiyan, who has dark hair, dark eyes, and is half Bengali, fears vigilantes will target him as he works in his garden. He's even stopped playing in the yard with the toddler next door because he's afraid someone will drive by and mistake him for the sex offender.

"It's scary – the more the public is aware, the more this information is disseminated," Mr. Bhuiyan said, "the more of a target I am."

Mr. Bhuiyan may have reason to be concerned. The state's online database gets more than 5 million hits a month – from community groups, schools and day care providers, churches and homeowners. It's linked to county and city Web sites, appraisal districts and crime maps.

Some people are even capitalizing on it.

Taking action

Addison's Taylor Goodman designed BlockWatcher.com after a sex offender moved in across the street from a close friend. His Web site uses addresses in the state database to showcase only those for-sale homes without sex offenders in their immediate vicinity – what Mr. Goodman calls an "offender-free realty network."

In the first few weeks after the site's launch, Mr. Goodman got more than 5,000 unique hits.

When asked how accurate his site could be if the state's data is faulty, Mr. Goodman pointed to his online disclaimer. But he said authorities must improve.

"There are a number of holes," he said, acknowledging that he's run across some phony addresses and out-of-date entries. "If they're not going to put them in jail, they have to come up with a better way of doing this."

State officials say the Texas sex offender registry is an important service. What's more, it's required by federal law. But they stop short of vouching for its accuracy.

Vincent Castilleja, the state's registration coordinator for records, called the Web site "a repository" and said, "What [local police departments] send us is what we get."

When asked if he had any idea how many wrong addresses are in the online registry, he said there was "really no way to come up with a magic number." Other state officials estimate 2 percent of the state's registered sex offenders have gone underground.

But Tela Mange, a DPS spokeswoman, said that while local law enforcement agencies will "always have the most updated information" on their own registries, some are better than others at forwarding that information to the state.

Updating registry

More than 800 local law enforcement agencies have secure access to make updates directly to the state's Web site, Ms. Mange said. But many police departments still continue to mail the updated information, she said, which state employees must type in by hand.

"We've tried to encourage them – we figure, eliminate the middleman, eliminate the errors," Ms. Mange said. "But we can't make them do it."

Lt. Williams said the Dallas Police Department has only limited access to the state's online registry and hopes to make data transmission simpler in the future.

While his officers have the technical capacity to update certain data fields on the Web, "we still transmit a lot of paperwork." The state is also backlogged, he said, and doing the best it can with its limited staff.

"We have the obligation to make sure our Dallas database is as accurate as possible and is transmitted as quickly as possible to the state. And I believe we do that," Lt. Williams said. "That said, you should always talk to your local police department to get the best data."

For Courtney, who was raped in her downtown parking garage, the sex offender registration system worked – after the fact.

The DNA sample linked to Mr. Mata's sex offender registration eventually led to his arrest. And even the bad addresses helped police track him down, she said, by giving authorities a trail to follow. He's now serving a life sentence.

But sex offender registration didn't prevent Courtney's rape. And she knows not to trust what she sees in the registry. Her 2003 assault still doesn't appear on Mr. Mata's page on the state Web site.

And her attacker's address remains listed at an apartment on San Jacinto Street, despite the fact that he's locked up in a maximum-security prison in Kenedy, Texas.

E-mail eramshaw@dallasnews.com

METHODOLOGY

Dallas Morning News reporters Emily Ramshaw, Jennifer LaFleur, Paul Meyer, Scott Goldstein, Jennifer Emily, Jason Trahan, Frank Trejo and Jake Batsell tested the validity of the state's sex offender registry after spot checks uncovered incorrect addresses for some registrants.

Reporters sent certified, registered letters to a random sample of 1,625 people on the sex offender registry from five North Texas counties: Collin, Dallas, Denton, Rockwall and Tarrant. The sample included about 400 sex offenders from each county except for Rockwall County, which had all its 44 sex offenders included in the study. There are a total of 6,776 registered sex offenders in the five-county area.

In the ensuing month, 52 percent of the sex offenders in the sample signed for their certified mail. Eleven percent of the letters came back as false or incomplete addresses, according to postal records. The remaining 37 percent of intended recipients either didn't receive the certified mail or refused delivery.

Researchers and reporters used multiple sources to verify the remaining addresses and update any that recently had changed.

Reporters made at least four attempts at various times to contact each unaccounted-for sex offender by phone and verify the address. The results of the phone study, combined with the certified mail results, indicated that some 46 percent of North Texas sex offenders could not be located: Either they had phony and outdated addresses, or their whereabouts could not be verified by certified mail and phone calls.