http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06266/724383-84.stm

Other nations don't trail offenders
Megan's Law can't follow deportees
Saturday, September 23, 2006

By Gabrielle Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


After convicted rapist Henry Caceres completes his sentence in a Pennsylvania prison, he will be sent home on a plane to Honduras.

If he were released anywhere in the United States he would be required, under Megan's Law, to register for life as a sex offender. But since Mr. Caceres was living in the country illegally, federal officials will deport him after he serves his sentence, in accordance with standard procedure. If he has no warrants pending in his country, said Consul General Francisco Venegas at the Honduran consulate in San Francisco, the 33-year-old also known as Henry Rodriguez and Henry Espernoza will be free to settle and move about Honduras undetected by his fellow citizens.

Prompted by the rapes, abductions and murders committed by convicted sex offenders, children's advocates in the United States spent more than a decade making information about convicted sex offenders available to the general public.

However, when convicted sex offenders are foreign nationals and get deported, no other country -- that child advocacy groups, state police and immigration officials know of -- keeps a public record of their criminal history.

"It's very frustrating for us because other countries don't have registration laws," said Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan's Law. "Communities have to take an active role by pressuring their governments to register [ex-offenders]."

The federal and state registry laws were passed in the wake of the 1994 abduction, rape and murder of a 7-year-old New Jersey girl named Megan Kanka. Megan's killer was a twice-convicted sex offender who moved in across the street from her home.

Oprah Winfrey, a longtime advocate of tracking criminals who harm children, has taken up the cause of apprehending fugitive sex offenders. On her internationally syndicated talk show and on her Web site, she offers rewards of $100,000 to viewers who give the FBI information leading to an arrest. Viewers from around the world have called in within a day of her postings to report fugitives.

Residents of Belize, Mexico and Costa Rica have cashed in on Oprah's finder's fee and have received heroes' accolades on her show, but citizens of these countries and hundreds of others have no resource to track fugitives or deported ex-convicts in their midst. Nor do they have any way of knowing when fellow citizens who have been convicted of sex crimes within their own borders are living among them, said Ms. Ahearn.

Japan and Argentina have considered registering sex offenders, but neither country has passed a law requiring it.

The United Kingdom and Canada track sex offenders for law enforcement purposes, but citizens cannot access their registries, Ms. Ahearn said.

Honduras fits the profile of the vast majority of countries which -- because of civil liberty concerns or bureaucratic hurdles or lack of laws on the matter -- do not track post-conviction sex offenders.

Mr. Caceres, a 33-year-old father of two, lived and worked in Philadelphia and Westwood for two years without incident. He was arrested last fall for raping a 56-year-old woman in her home, stalking a number of other female neighbors, burglarizing several homes and stealing women's panties. He was arrested in October and confessed to police. He pleaded guilty on all counts in June. An Allegheny County judge sentenced him Thursday to 71/2 to 15 years in state prison.

Afterward, according to current policy, officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will notify the Honduran consulate that a "criminal alien" is about to be released and deported. "If they're interested in learning the background of the case, we make someone available," said Michael Keegan, a spokesman for ICE. "It's really up to the country to decide."

He said that Salvadoran officials sometimes inquire about gang-related deportees and Colombian officials have asked for information about major drug offenders, but no country that he knows of specifically requests information about rapists or child molesters.

Mr. Venegas, of the Honduran consulate, said that whether or not deportees have criminal backgrounds, each deported immigrant is routinely fingerprinted and documented on a law enforcement list, and but if they are not wanted for any crimes in Honduras, "the privacy of the person is preserved."

Lt. Janet McNeal, commander of the state police Megan's Law Unit in Harrisburg, said that Pennsylvania and other states have made extraordinary efforts to track the comings and goings of sex offenders within the United States. But once they are deported, they likely will drop off the law enforcement radar.


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(Gabrielle Banks can be reached at gbanks@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1370. )