Member Contribution: Diligence when reporting information
Recently, I had an acquaintance of mine that was caught up in “Operation Neptune” in Volusia County. I am writing this so you may warn others that are on the registry what happened to this guy, could easily happen to them if they are not vigilant.
When they came to his house, they checked his tag number against what they had in the paperwork from the Sheriffs office. One of the digits was put into the system wrong at the Sheriff Dept. when he did his quarterly registration. It had been this way for quite some time and he never noticed the error. For this reason, he wound up pleading guilty to a 3rd degree Felony and was given 2 Years Probation with the ankle monitor. He is only allowed to go to work and then home.
This is not all that happened to him. He lives in a House that has 2 additional small apartments within it. They charged him for not providing his landlady’s and the other tenants tag numbers and VIN numbers as well. When they asked him about the other vehicle, which belonged to the other tenant, he said it belonged to his room mate. He definitely used the wrong terminology to describe the other tenant. So he had a total of 3 felonys staring him in the face. His attorney (who I had thought was a very good attorney) at first was going to have him plead guilty and take a 7 year prison sentence! The night before he was going to plead guilty, we had a dinner for him at a Restaurant in Deland. We began talking about his case and he mentioned that he had told the Officer that the other car belonged to his room mate. I asked if the guy rents a room off him or what? His response was: No, he has his own apartment. I could not believe he had put himself at such risk by simply calling the other tenant a room mate. We told him there should be no way he should be responsible for his landlady or the other tenants car tags and VIN Numbers. The next day we all met with his attorney and he told him he was going to fight it all the way. Had it not been for us having dinner that night, he would now be in the DOC for 7 years. When he went to court, the Judge threw out the other 2 cases involving the landlady and the other tenant (because the Judge said the statute was vague), but would not throw out the clerical error charge. Even now, I do not agree with him being on probation or pleading guilty. But unfortunately, that is the way this system works.
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Will the ACLU or someone not help this person. That is complete BS and should easily be overturned by a semi-competent attorney.
Both vehicle registration and strict liability are already under challenge in court.
So glad to hear about the challenge to strict liability. Do you have any details on who and where it is being challenged?
I have had the opportunity recently to meet some registrants of all ages, and I have been hard-pressed to find one person who has not been arrested for forgetting to bring their “box” with them, even if they remember and turn around to go back and pick it up. When I think of the times that I have walked out of my home, forgetting to pick up my cell phone, how can I always remember to have my husband with dementia carry his “box” with him as we leave the house. Yes, we will have a sign posted on the door we exit and on the steering wheel of the car, but we are human. No legislator, judge, prosecutor, sheriff, or law enforcement official can ever say that they have never walked off and left some important item.
What is this “Box” you are talking about ?
GPS
I thought that was non re-moveable. I see those on tv and they are ankle bracelets and if you remove them it goes off and notifies the authorities. Did they change them ?
It goes with the GPS ankle monitor, only for those on probation. Fortunately, you probably never had to wear one.
Yeah I was on regular probation but sometimes I did have cars follow me around to see if I was going somewhere I was not supposed to. Was uncover cops trying to catch me doing something I was not allowed to.
Meanwhile 100 other real crimes took place in the city with the people never being caught because all the cops were harassing easy targets.
It is part of our ex post facto plus challenge in Does v Swearingen. Box?
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Sarah, I have left my monitor in the car a couple of times. Once when I was in a healthy living class at Patrick AFB and another time when I was in a restaurant having dinner with friends. When I realized it I immediately went and retrieved it. I was fortunate that probation did not push the issue. By then I believe they knew I was not the kind of person to try to trick the system.
If he can win his case by proving it to be a clerical error, than written into FDLE’s own black and white in regards to the registry, it is automatically grounds for a civil lawsuit against the state. I myself had issues in the past with the sheriff’s department correctly entering information, and when I asked for a copy of what the FDLE are provided and have listed, the sheriff’s department just looked at me and said they cannot help me in that regard. Yet after being detained for 18months and facing 3-5 years for a failure to register an Internet identifier for which the sheriff’s department didn’t enter into the system despite being provided it on multiple occasions, I was given a plea of time served, and low and behold wouldn’t you know it that little bit of paperwork I asked for all these years, was handed to me the day of my release and every day afterwards. Never trust them to do what’s right, as this can be an example result.
You need to check all the information every time .last time I registered they had removed my vehicle off the registration I had them put it back on there mistake . Be diligent check everything everytime and ask for a hard copy of everything you submit
If the lawyer is in FAC’s referral list, that needs to be reviewed at this time.
I would be interested in the judge’s reasoning behind accepting a felony guilty plea associated with police clerical error. Did he just throw up his hands and say, the law is clear here, nothing I can do?
I am going to be a donkey’s behind here and say , that judge is a royal *ss. Someone is a threat to society because of a clerical error? I can bet every breath left in my life that judge was just like the one I had, hated anyone with a sex offense so badly, they wouldn’t see the true if God Himself said the person was not guilty.
Sorry but will use a Trump word , this was the real definition of a Witch hunt. A few times a year I see someone charged with a sex crime that they may have even committed getting thrown out for a technicality, and yet here is someone who already did, or is doing their time for what happened, and some minor crap that was not his fault, got him more time and another charge that now will never allow him off the registry.
NOW to the worse part. This JUST happened to me. I changed vehicles over 3 years ago. Kept the same tag, same kind of vehicle, brand, style everything. Only difference? The color. I gave them my registration and never thought another thought about it.
About 4 months later, I noticed the color was wrong so I risked waiting till my next time in the change it and did. Lo and behold, when I went back the next time, it was wrong again. This time I asked for a supervisor and said something is wrong. I showed them my paperwork from the previous time proving I had changed it so how does it keep changing back?
Well I was blaming the sheriff’s office and it was actually the DMV who made the mistake. My registration for my truck was WRONG.
At first they were going to charge me for the change which is BS so I went down to the car dealer and they changed it for me for free since they agreed THEY made the mistake.
I cannot even imagine going back to jail for the wrong color on my paperwork. I would be in the cell and some big oaf would say ” I killed three people what did you do?” ” Um I was driving the wrong colored vehicle?”
AGAIN- save ALLLLLLL of your paperwork in a locked file, it may one day save your tail.
They are so crooked in the courts. They have to get money out of him or anybody for that matter. These so-called cops are just as crooked as the courts are. He should have taken that to jury trial. They cannot charge him for their clerical error!!!