TALLAHASSEE —When authorities reported catching Randell Wayne Wilken, 57, flashing a 4-year-old boy through the child’s bedroom blinds last April, the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s deputy on scene arrested a familiar face in a sadly familiar case.

Wilken, a registered sexual offender now living in Fort Pierce, has been arrested more than 17 times since 1979 and most on sexual charges for exposing himself.

The Port St. Lucie Police Department told Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, about Wilken last fall. He has wandered around St. Lucie County parks and neighborhoods naked, tried to get into people’s homes and got caught. Except for cases involving youngsters less than 16 years old, he usually faced misdemeanor charges and county jail time, and then proceeded to keep disrobing around town, according to arrest reports.

In a Harrell proposal on sexual predators and offenders that passed its first House committee Thursday, the Wilken case is just one local scenario potentially sparking change in state law. More than three indecent exposure convictions in cases like Wilken’s would earn a third-degree felony — punishable by up to five years in prison, and $5,000

 

Ok, so what happens after 5 years in prison? How does that help? Wilken would get out in five years or less and start flashing right where he left off. Thanks for the Band-Aid Gayle.

May be we need to figure out why this guy is a wing-nut. If I stop and think about the above solution it sounds something like this:

John Doe is retarded so to control his behavior we locked him up for 5 years the released him. We could not understand why after 5 years of incarceration his behavior has not changed.

 

The measure also revisits a bill that failed last session, which she said could have prevented 17-year-old Brittany Carleo’s 2006 murder at the hands of a sexual predator out on bond prior to his sentencing.

And Harrell said there might be a way for the bill to address a September situation when an Indian River County registered sex offender didn’t inform the principal before visiting Osceola Magnet School for lunch with his now-wife’s child. Assistant State Attorney Chris Taylor said the man couldn’t be prosecuted because he wasn’t made aware of a 2010 law requiring advance notice by sex offenders for school visits.

 So what now! Are they proposing that laws can be created and enforced without for knowledge? Also what was wrong with this guy having lunch with his stepchild? Just because the community is blinded by fear does not indicate a real threat.  

INDECENT EXPOSURE

Wilken’s offenses weren’t all just naked walks in the park.

His convictions included sexual battery, various sexual offenses, two cases of lewd and lascivious indecent assault on a child under the age of 16, and one attempted under-16 lewd and lascivious case. Wilken has been sentenced to about 20 years total in state prison since 1981. He’s served about 12 of them, according to Department of Corrections records.

And the children were 4 and 8 years old in two of the cases, arrest affadavits state.

“We’ve had many, many incidents where individuals have been making appearances in front of people’s homes, knocking on windows, and doing more than flashing I would say. Exposing themselves,” Harrell said. “…They have many incidents in Port St. Lucie where this has happened. We don’t make a law for one individual, but if this is a reoccurring thing, we want to make sure the situation is addressed.”

Wilken has been arrested nine times on indecent exposure charges — most of them in St. Lucie County, two in Martin and one in Manatee. For example, he jiggled the door knob to a Port St. Lucie home in the nude in 2007, fled the scene and law enforcement Tasered him, a St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office report states.

Harrell said increasing potential charges would help deter repeated indecent exposure offenders. Currently, the first-degree misdemeanor charges for indecent exposure call for up to a year in jail, and $1,000 fine.

 

Once again this is more about how this county mishandled this case or cases than a need for more laws that effect people that have to register most of which are no risk. 

 

BRITTANY’S LAW

NO! NO! NO! Anytime you need to name a law after someone especially a kid Red flag should go up and alarms should sound letting you know some politician is bucking for reelection votes. You need to then look at the proposed legislation very closely it won’t take long to find the holes in it.  

The bill to be named “Brittany’s Law” fell short in the 2011 legislative session’s waning moments last year, but Harrell has revived the provision again.

The bill would keep registered sexual predators and offenders who are arrested again in jail until a judge can determine whether they’re too dangerous to release. Individuals with those records would be held up to 24 hours before potentially being released, as long as the crime is more severe than a traffic misdemeanor.

I have a real problem with this part.

First it is wide open for misappropriation because it leaves the Judge open to liability if he lets someone out and the persons commits a crime. Better to error on the side of caution and keep the guy in jail. You know guilty till proven innocent.

Second how much information can you gather in 24hr. Don’t you think you need something more than a prior conviction to have a mandatory hold on someone. Let’s say someone is caught driving a stolen car and had a sex crime 10 yrs. prior to the new arrest. We can now hold him for 24hrs with no bond to see if he is a danger. What do you base the danger on? It implies that the “Danger” is sexually in nature because the hold is for being a RSO.

Third what happens after 24hr if a determination is not made and if it is are you now held till trial? Let’s say you are sentenced on the car theft and serve a year’s time are you then not released because you were a “Danger” at the time of your arrest or dose a year in jail change that?

If I get arrested for DUI after hitting two other vehicles I can bond out and be back at the bar in no time. let’s face it after that I could use a drink.

I’m certain if you put your mind to it you can come up with some ideas of your own.   

Had it been in effect, the bill could’ve made a difference in the case of Carleo, a 17-year-old who was murdered in 2006 by a 42-year-old sex offender who bonded out after arrest.

In July 2006, 42-year-old sex offender Scott Uslan stormed into the Tropical Smoothie on Port St. Lucie Boulevard where Carleo worked just two days after making bail. He shot and killed her in the kitchen, and then ended his life with the next bullet.

After she dated his son, Carleo became involved with Scott Uslan. And for about a year, Uslan had mentally and physically abused her, given her drugs and alcohol and had sex with her for almost a year, according to police reports.

A nine-month Port St. Lucie Police Department investigation landed Uslan in jail for making harrassing phone calls to Carleo.

But he bailed out in less than a day for about $50, charged into the Port St. Lucie Boulevard restaurant two days later and shot Carleo before killing himself.

The bill passed the House, but died before reaching the Senate floor last session.

Look no law would have stopped this murder if that’s what Uslan wanted to do at best you prolong it. Men who plan to kill them selves don’t care about your laws. Hell committing suicide is agents the law.

 

VISITS TO SCHOOLS

After Brian Hamlin, 33, visited Osceola Magnet without informing the principal, he appeared to have broken a 2010 law, punishable by a first-degree misdemeanor carrying penalties of up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine.

Because there was no evidence Hamlin or any other sex offender was given notice of the 2010 law, he couldn’t be prosecuted, according to the State Attorney’s Office.

Harrell said her bill doesn’t address that situation currently, but the situation might need more statutory clarity. She said House staff is looking at whether anything can be done to make the law clearer in the future.

“We’re going to make sure if we need to address it — and we’re not sure that there isn’t adequate statute there already — then we are absolutely going to do it,” she said.

Stupidity at its best Laws we don’t inform people about.

via Lawmaker wants to make tougher sex offender laws » Naples Daily News.