Leave it up to the fear-mongering media to whip people into a frenzy for a story! Must be a slow week or something!
09/21/2011
By Will Ripley
DENVER - It's not exactly a room at the Ritz, but for some people, motels on Colfax Avenue are all they can afford. A three-month 9Wants to Know investigation found, if you stay at one of those motels, there's a good chance you're living next to sex offenders and may not even know it.
Motels are not legally obligated to tell you who is staying in the room next door, even if that person is a registered sex offender. There are no laws in Colorado restricting where sex offenders can live, although guidelines may be established by the court in individual cases.
9Wants to Know found some motels are housing 10 or even 20 offenders, and not disclosing that information to other guests. We also interviewed a sex offender staying at one of those motels, who told us he would not feel safe having his own children stay there.
- Like you said above, they don't have to tell people, and the vigilante media is out in full force to get that next story. The very laws being passed, are what is causing this. Get rid of the residency restrictions, and this problem with most likely vanish.
"My name is George," he said. "I'm 43. I grew up in Minnesota and since I've moved to Colorado I've been in trouble. I can't seem to get out of the cycle."
On the road of life, George has taken plenty of wrong turns. Now he feels he has hit a dead end. When he spoke to 9Wants to Know in June, he had recently been released from prison on parole and was required to register as a sex offender. He asked 9NEWS not to use his last name.
"I have [a charge of] attempted sexual assault on a minor which resulted from an Internet sting," George said.
George was chatting with an undercover police officer who claimed to be a 14-year-old girl. He served two years and three months before his early release. The Colorado Department of Corrections provided him with vouchers to cover his housing costs for two months, giving him time to look for a job.
"They put me in a motel," George said. "They put us in a high-crime area."
At the time of our interview in June, George was living in The Carriage Motor Inn on East Colfax Avenue and Yosemite Street.
"There are crack dealers up and down the street and there's all kinds of craziness going on," Mary Elise Filipy said.
Filipy used to work at another Colfax hotel, the Newhouse, on East Colfax and Grant Street, directly across from the State Capitol.
Filipy says the Newhouse is filled with felons on parole, including sex offenders.
"They had been in jail for child molestation, for rape," Filipy said.
- And what about the other felons you seem to be skipping over?
9Wants to Know first reported about the Newhouse in June, when a guest complained that they had not been told about all the sex offenders staying there.
- So what is the registry for again? It's for the public, and also so shame ex-offenders, but clearly the public doesn't use it. It's your job, not the government or the hotel/motel to tell you who lives around you.
A recent search of the Colorado Sex Offender Database found 11 sex offenders who registered the Newhouse as their home address.
- Okay, so? What's the point of this story? Ex-offenders have to live somewhere!
We also found 10 registered sex offenders at the Sand and Sage motel at East Colfax and Wabash Street, 14 at the Shepherd's motel at East Colfax and Valentia Street, and 21 at the Carriage Motor Inn.
- Have you ever bothered to ask why they might be living there, or why they might be homeless? Maybe it's the very laws being passed that is the problem, you ever think of that, or does the label "sex offender," all of a sudden make your brain die so you cannot see past the label?
A State of Colorado voucher shows the state paid $180 per week for George's motel room, which amounted to $1,440 for two months.
- Okay, the state put them there using tax payer money, so why are you harassing ex-offenders and the hotel/motel owners?
"They picked the motel," George said. "They told me where I was going before I even got out."
Chris Lobanov-Rostovsky, program manager for the Colorado Sex Offender management board, says the state is doing the best it can to provide housing and support for Colorado's 14,600 registered sex offenders.
- Except going back to the self-serving legislature passing the draconian laws, that would be a major step in finding housing for these people. Get rid of the residency laws that don't work as intended in the first place, they only cause homelessness and people to cluster together, because that is the only place they can legally live. Ever thought of that?
He says, ideally, all offenders would be placed in a "halfway house" environment or shared living arrangement. However, bed space is limited and many landlords won't rent to convicted felons, let alone sex offenders.
- And when a place opens that is housing ex-offenders, like mentioned here, the mob comes out and complains! Ideally, once a person has been to prison and completed their time, they'd not have to live by draconian laws and on some shaming list, that is what is ideal!
"It's a tough balancing act," Lobanov-Rostovsky said. "Parole has to make decisions in terms of who to put where."
- It's not really that tough, repeal the laws and the problems go away! You just put them where you can, hoping nobody complains, and when they do, you just move them somewhere else, just like California, whose been placing the "sex offender shuffle" for a very long time now.
Lobanov-Rostovsky estimates a small percentage of sex offenders eventually become homeless after they are released from prison because they cannot find a job or housing.
- And why can't they find a job or housing? BECAUSE OF THE DAMN LAWS YOU ARE PASSING, that is why!
"The state is doing the best it can to try and monitor these offenders and protect the community and keep citizens safe," Lobanov-Rostovsky said. "We're trying to help an offender to be successful, and to be successful we mean to not re-offend and to live a law-abiding life."
- You can NEVER protect the community from someone intent on doing them harm, never. 10 million laws won't prevent that. Even if each person had their own bodyguard, it would not prevent it. And I really don't think you are trying to help ex-offenders re-integrate back into society, if you were, you'd repeal the unconstitutional laws, but, that could make you look bad and ruin your career, right?
"Other neighborhoods don't want them, so they're kind of left with no other alternative," Filipy said. "Where are they going to go?"
- Who cares if neighbors don't want them? Hell, I don't like a couple of my neighbors, can I get rid of them as well?
Filipy thinks the hotels housing offenders have a responsibility to alert potential guests, especially those with children.
- No they don't! Is there a law saying they must do that? They are making a lot of money by helping ex-offenders.
"I personally believe that people have a right to know and to be aware of their surroundings," Filipy said.
- Not me. There is nothing that gives them that right, except them being smart people and knowing their neighbors, talking with them, purchasing a gun, legally, etc. Hell, if we have a right to know, then I'd like to know about all the other non-sex offender felons who live around me as well, like murderers, gang members, drug dealers/users, DUI offenders, thieves, etc. Do you also remember all those RIGHTS that God gave us, and the Constitution gave us? I like those rights, how about you?
When a new manager took over, Filipy says she quit her job as a front desk clerk.
"I was told that I was no longer allowed to tell people that we had sex offenders staying in the hotel," Filipy said. "And if families with children wanted to stay there that would be OK too."
9Wants to Know left several messages with Filipy's former manager. We have not yet received a call back.
- And I don't blame them, the media is always out for blood, and I don't think this is any different!
Two 9NEWS staffers went undercover with a young child to see what really happens when a family tries to check-in.
The clerk at the Newhouse told us as soon as we walked-in: The hotel is not safe for children.
- And I'm sure she will probably be fired soon as well. It's not their responsibility to tell you, it's your responsibility to find out before checking in, that is whose responsibility it is! Everyone in this world now wants someone else to blame, or to "protect" them, instead of themselves. If we ever do have a war in this country, we are all screwed!
"Just between you and me, you don't want to have a kid in this building," he said. "There's a lot of felons here and stuff."
It was a different story at the three other motels we visited undercover.
A worker at the Carriage Inn told us the motel was OK for kids, in spite of the 21 sex offenders registered there.
- Well, if you examine the facts, most known sex offenders do not go on to commit new sex crimes, but hey, the truth doesn't matter, only what people perceive to be the truth is what matters, or the lies they've been told over and over.
At the Shepherd motel, a clerk told us they did not accept vouchers from the Department of Corrections, and even mentioned how "other" motels would accept convicts.
"It's all about them getting their money," she said, never mentioning the 14 sex offenders registered at the motel.
The manager of the Sand and Sage told us it was a great place for kids, in spite of the 10 sex offenders registered there.
- So, what are the 10 sex offenders charged with? You just let everyone assume they molested kids, and that they are all dangerous pedophile predators, just like most media outfits do. The media is a joke these days, it's all about money and entertainment, anything to rake in the cash, viewers and ratings.
We returned to the hotels with a 9NEWS camera and received various explanations.
Soo Kim, who identified herself as the wife of the Carriage Inn owner, told us they normally turn families away and the clerk who helped us was just filling in.
"She's not a manager," Kim said.
Orlando Martinez Jr., son of the Shepherd motel owner, said his clerk did nothing wrong.
"That's your responsibility to keep an eye on your kids," Martinez said.
- AMEN!
Joseph Rivers, manager of the Sand and Sage, said he didn't know there were sex offenders at his motel.
He told us he would disclose information about sex offenders to guests with children.
"Because it's their right to know," Rivers said.
- I disagree, it's not their right to know, and it's not your responsibility to tell them, it's their responsibility to check before checking in, period!
George says motels full of sex offenders are no place for children.
"I see kids running around the parking lot," George said. "If it was my kids I wouldn't want them running around. Because I know who's there."
- So, my final question is, how long have they been living there? If it's a long time, then apparently it's not a problem and people are not in danger, which is my suspicion.
