Published: Sunday, October 5, 2014 at 5:30 a.m.
News-Journal/JIM TILLER Convicted sex offender Benigno Rodriguez resides at the Bird’s Nest Motel 3753 West International Speedway Blvd. just west of Daytona Beach . The motel houses sex offenders Thursday October 2, 2014.

A dingy row of motel rooms on Daytona Beach’s outskirts almost never has a vacancy; the need for the type of lodging offered there is too great.

One room after the next at the inn along the road to the city’s gateway is home for more than two dozen registered sex offenders, who told The News-Journal they pay $500 a month in rent.

Nine of the current residents at 3753 W. International Speedway Blvd. are sexual predators — those whose victims were abused before their teenage years or who offended, violently, multiple times.

Predator Charles Balfe — who used the Bible to justify sex with teenagers and punished children by using objects to sodomize them — is the most widely recognized of the residents.

People who live nearby know about the motel, formerly called the Bird’s Nest, because deputies bring them sex offender fliers when someone new starts living there. The addresses of the offenders are also listed on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s website.

But the name of the motel’s owner, tax and purchase information have been kept “confidential” by Volusia County Property Appraiser Morgan Gilreath for the past four years.

The ISB motel belongs to Julie Martin, who also owns a similar property, the Sunrise Motel, housing about 20 sex offenders at 1108 W. Canal St., near New Smyrna Beach.

“She is at risk by some of the people she rents to and people who won’t like what she’s doing,” Gilreath said.

The appraiser acknowledged the law doesn’t back keeping the records secret and released them Friday after a News-Journal public records request.

“In retrospect, we probably should not have done it. We tried to look at it from a compassionate standpoint.”

A PLACE FOR OFFENDERS

Gilreath’s view is shared by probation officers and those who release sex offenders from prison, Martin said.

Word of mouth from law enforcement and other sex offenders is what keeps Martin’s rooms full.

She said the exemption came about because probation officers thought, “The more I took in, the more they suggested … for my safety.”

While saying she has never felt threatened, “People have written nasty-grams to me. It’s happened twice.”

Officials at the Department of Corrections did not respond to requests to speak about Martin and her role in accepting former inmates at her properties.

The Volusia County Property Appraiser’s Office granted Martin confidential status in 2010 after Daytona Beach correctional probation specialist Steven Kelley — who worked for the Florida Department of Corrections — wrote a short letter to Gilreath. In the letter, Kelley said he had recommended that Martin request confidentiality regarding her home address in the county and the Sunrise Motel. Kelly did not mention the Bird’s Nest in the letter. That exemption was granted two years later when Martin purchased the property.

“She rents to several Sexual Offenders and Predators, and this is a request for her and her family’s safety,” Kelley wrote in his 2010 letter.

Martin said the confidential status afforded to her by the property appraiser’s office was not for her own safety, but for her children. She intentionally has no footprint on the Internet and declined a request to be photographed for this story.

Kelley could not be reached.

Martin, 46, prefers to keep her private life private and is reluctant to talk about the motels. She said she’s a mother but won’t say how many children she has. She said she also does a lot of mothering at her motels.

“I’m a really good mom. I’m their cheerleader when they’re doing the right thing,” Martin said.

For some of the residents she makes grocery lists and makes sure they stay on schedule for group therapy sessions if that is part of their probation.

She doesn’t allow consumption of alcohol on the property and banished one resident to a tent off her property after she says she caught him drinking.

She says she doesn’t hesitate to alert authorities if she suspects something illegal.

“I would be the first one to call,” she said.

IN AND AROUND THE MOTEL

On a recent muggy morning at the motel on West International Speedway, a handful of the residents lingered outside their rooms. This motel — formerly called the Bird’s Nest but now labeled with a sign that just reads, “MOTEL” — is within walking distance of the Volusia County Branch Jail and across the street from the United Way of Volusia-Flagler Counties office. It is also less than a mile from Daytona Estates, a subdivision of older single-family houses, and a Chevron gas station and convenience store.

There were 28 offenders, nine of those predators, at the motel last week. The nearby jail on Friday housed 39 sex offenders; 10 of those are designated predators.

It was a surprise when United Way officials learned from the Sheriff’s Office who its new neighbors were going to be, said Ray Salazar president and board secretary.

“It really is a two-fold kind of a reaction,” Salazar said. “Like anybody in the community you would kind of go, ‘Wow, I’m not sure I’m comfortable living in the close proximity of people who have been convicted of sexual assault.’ But the other part of me as a social service provider, these people have to live somewhere; they have to be monitored. Hiding them away doesn’t seem to jibe with our need to help, to serve people. ”

Those convicted of committing sex offenses after Oct. 1, 2004, against victims younger than 16 are prohibited from living within 1,000 feet of a school, day care center, park or playground, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Salazar said at first the sex offenders walked over to the United Way office to see what services they could get. But those visits stopped quickly when the motel residents realized United Way did not have anything to offer them.

Salazar said that while there is no day care center at the United Way, children do visit sometimes.

“The building is used by a variety of people,” Salazar said. “Often times they will bring children with them. Our volunteers will sometimes bring children with them. We have staff that have children.”

He said they take standard security precautions with cameras, locks and plenty of lights, not just because of the sex offenders but because the facility is kind of remote. He said that every time a new sex offender moves in, the Sheriff’s Office notifies United Way and provides a picture and information on their criminal record. Law enforcement visits the motel frequently, he said.

“The relationship we have with the folks across the street is cordial,” Salazar said. “It’s not ugly. They tend to be good neighbors. They stay to themselves on their property.”

Some of the people living behind the motel in Daytona Estates are aware of the former Bird’s Nest and the men who live there. Some say they don’t care about the men as long as the motel dwellers don’t come onto their properties. Others say they’re uncomfortable about it.

“Everybody in that motel is a sexual offender,” said resident Austin Ustica as he walked his dog along General Marshall Road. “I have a 1-year-old daughter and it makes me very uncomfortable. I grew up in here. My parents still have their house here.”

Homeowner Bobby Harman, who moved to Daytona Estates from Virginia, said he would like to get a petition going in the subdivision to get rid of the motel on ISB, and its residents.

“When they first bought the motel, they told us they were going to put child molesters in there,” Harman said. “Every time a new one comes in, they (deputies) notify us.”

Harman said he was admonished by a deputy who told him he was wrong to judge the individuals who live at the motel.

“I’m not judging anyone,” Harman said. “But if I catch one of them with a child, I’m gonna do something stupid. I won’t let anyone hurt a child.”

THE RESIDENTS

At the ISB motel, there are 12 rooms in the building painted a dull beige. A motley collection of chairs and bar stools sits outside each unit, accompanied by rust-pocked metal barbecue grills of varying sizes. Some of the residents have their own vehicles; others depend on old bicycles. Some of the men have jobs and all of them — except for manager Allen Wilson, also a convicted sex offender on probation — share their small rooms with one or two other men.

Martin said she provides the men at both motels with all the furnishings to include bedding and linens. She said she even purchased the barbecue grills for them. She said about a third of the residents don’t pay and some will never be able to, but she doesn’t evict them.

“What would I do with them?” she asked. “Put them in the woods?”

Sex offender Leroy Horne’s room was kept tidy. The twin beds were mounted atop a wooden frame. The bed covers were faded and torn.

One of Martin’s residents at the Bird’s Nest is 69-year-old Charles Balfe, a convicted sexual predator.

A self-proclaimed Internet preacher, Balfe used religion to lure his victims, prosecutors said. DeLand police arrested him in April 2005 and at his trial the following year, witnesses described Balfe’s use of physical violence, death threats, Bible lectures and

extreme discipline to keep children quiet about his sexual attacks. He beat the children with walking sticks and shoes and stomped on them when they fell to the floor, witnesses said.

Prosecutors said Balfe carefully orchestrated his moves to get close to single women with children. Reports showed how one child suffered a ruptured eardrum when Balfe hit him.

On a morning last week, a shirtless Balfe opened the door to his motel room and quickly shut it after he learned his visitor was a reporter. His fellow motel mates call him “Chuck,” and one said, “He’s a nice guy.”

Another resident was convicted sexual predator Stephen Dale Casey, killed on a bicycle on West International Speedway last week as he attempted to cross from the north side to the south side of the roadway. Casey was struck by a 22-year-old motorist after the Florida Highway Patrol said he stepped into the driver’s path as he walked across with his bicycle. The 57-year-old Casey wound up at the motel after his release from prison. He was designated a sexual predator because in 2007 Daytona Beach police say he exposed his genitals to three children who were walking with their mother on Seabreeze Boulevard. The children were all under the age of 10.

Leroy Horne, 64, said he knew Casey. Horne, convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child between the ages of 12 and 15, and lewd and lascivious molestation of a child between the ages of 12 and 15, claims he is innocent and that the girl who hurled the accusation at him was coached by other adults. He is married and said he has a house in New Smyrna Beach.

“I was falsely accused of touching a young lady, of pulling up against her,” Horne said. “She was 13 or 14 at the time.”

His neighbor at the Bird’s Nest is Benigno Rodriguez, a 62-year-old convicted sexual predator. Rodriguez, also shirtless, is gaunt and sports a gray ponytail. He stood at the door to his room and showed a picture frame containing his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. On the frame’s top corners are decals of the Virgin Mary, and on the bottom corners are pictures of Rodriguez’s son, who he said was murdered at the age of 21 in New York.

Rodriguez doesn’t deny the crime — lewd and lascivious molestation of a victim younger than 12 — that put him in a place like the Bird’s Nest.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m sorry for that.”

Rodriguez said he learned about the Bird’s Nest in prison when he was about to be released a year ago after doing 10 years behind bars. He is serving a 20-year probation sentence.

“I’ve been trying to be good. I’m not a bad person,” he said.

Across the parking lot from Horne and Rodriguez is Bird’s Nest manager Allen Wilson. The word “Office” is posted outside his motel room door. Wilson has been at the Bird’s Nest since November 2013. He said he oversees the property for Martin and makes sure everyone is doing what they’re supposed to do. He said there are rules, but did not want to disclose what they are. Wilson — who goes by the moniker “June Bug” according to the FDLE sex offender flier — was convicted of lewd and lascivious battery on a child between the ages of 12 and 15. He is on probation and was also sent to the Bird’s Nest by probation and parole officials, he said.

As Wilson spoke, another resident also named Wilson — 70-year-old Wilson Woodruff — arrived at the motel. Woodruff is a convicted sexual predator, his crime the rape of a child under the age of 12.

Woodruff said he loves the Bird’s Nest. His apartment is located behind the manager’s and is somewhat larger than the other rooms, with a screened in porch and yard space.

Woodruff said his room is equipped with a hot plate, an electric frying pan and an electric grill and refrigerator.

“I like it back here,” he said. “We got a patio and everything back here and nobody bothers you here.”

THE SUNRISE

At Martin’s property near New Smyrna Beach, though, some of the residents were not as satisfied.

Dennis Bragg and his two roommates were moving out of their room on Thursday afternoon at the Sunrise Motel. The men said they each pay $500 a month for the large bedroom with a bathroom and kitchen area. But the apartment needed fumigating.

“It’s infested with bed bugs,” said Bragg, who was convicted of lewd and lascivious molestation of a child younger than 12. “It’s infested with rats. They’ve trapped seven to eight rats in this place. It’s dirty. They don’t got a good landlord here. They don’t keep up on the place.”

The men were waiting on pup tents that would be pitched on the property. Martin was donating them. A makeshift shower with tarps was also put up in a grassy area in the back of the property.

Martin said one room has bed bugs at the Sunrise and it’s the residents’ habits that help the vermin propagate.

“One guy brought bed bugs over after he’d been visiting someone,” Martin said.

“The pest guy stops by once a week and inspects every room. That’s how we found (the bed bugs) and we’re taking care of it,” Martin said.

PUTTING UP SEX OFFENDERS

Martin said she runs a for-profit business but is just breaking even.

She moved to the area from South Florida and nine years ago bought the Sunrise, formerly Motel 44, in an unincorporated enclave surrounded by New Smyrna Beach, to run as an inn that rents rooms to the public.

Martin said years ago a sex offender’s mother asked her if she’d let her son stay at the West Canal Street motel. She said one by one more sex offenders were accepted, until that became the business.

Martin bought the former Bird’s Nest on ISB in 2012 but won’t say how she funded the purchase.

“That is none of your business,” she said. But she did say the acquisition of the ISB property did not come from profits derived from the Sunrise Motel. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

Martin said she and her husband are no longer together. Property records released Friday show her ex-husband resides in a 4,000-square-foot home on 5 acres near Edgewater.

Martin acknowledged the egregiousness of some of her residents’ crimes, including most of the designated sexual predators whose rap sheets include child victims.

But, she said, “There’s also a whole bunch who made a mistake and admitted to it and said ‘I’m going to change my life and make things better.’ ”

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