Once Fallen: The murder of Mattieo Condoluci
Many of you are aware that there was a vigilante killing in Omaha, Nebraska this past weekend, and the murderer turned himself into the police last night.
The Omaha media, particularly the World-Herald, has all but canonized the murderer, making him a sympathetic character, while the registrant he killed was not a sympathetic character. This has led to an outpouring of support for the murderer.
But, no matter the backstory between the two individuals, the fact remains that this was an act of pre-meditated murder by someone who used registry information as a weapon to murder a registered citizen. This was not self-defense, but a cold, calculated killing.
The murderer is behind bars right now, but for how long, I don’t know.
There is a Facebook group, the same group that was stalking the registrant for years, has repackaged itself today as “Free James Fairbanks” in honor of the man they had a role in murdering (the killer has been connected with this Facebook page). Facebook has a long history of discrimination against registrants. Last year, Facebook was caught allowing threats against those accused or convicted of sex offenses.
There have also been GoFundMe pages popping up to raise money for this killer.
After spending all day with this news, I’ve settled on some ideas on how you, particularly those of you in larger, more influential groups than OnceFallen, may address this issue:
- Contact the Douglas County County Attorney’s office and request they deny bail to Fairbanks. Ask he be prosecuted for a hate crime. The vigilante group is raising funds now for this killer’s legal defense so if he gets bail, he could be free. Here’s a contact form:
https://countyattorney.douglascounty-ne.gov/contact-ciminal-division
- Report the vigilante group “Free James Fairbanks” to Facebook as a hate group. They whitewashed some threatening statements but this is the group connected to the killer:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1710566045863512/
- Report this Change.org Petition. There is a “Report a policy violation” option but it is part of the way down the page, below petition updates.
https://www.change.org/p/donald-j-trump-pardon-james-fairbanks
- Contact GoFundMe and demand they reject ALL vigilante petitions for funds that reward criminal behavior. At last count, there were 5 separate fundraisers for James Fairbanks:
https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us
- I’d contact the Nebraskans Unafraid Group to see if you can help them in any way. This is a good time to attack the Nebraska registry:
https://nebraskansunafraid.org/
I have found the local Omaha World-Herald to be a less than neutral source. They are, in my opinion, very slanted in painting James Fairbanks as a sympathetic figure and seemingly promoting the vigilante group and the fundraisers.
This is a very good time to make the Nebraska legislature aware of the dangers the public registry creates. This is not the first time there was a murder in Nebraska and it won’t be the last.
Derek W. Logue of OnceFallen.com
Registered Citizen/ Civil Rights Advocate #abolishtheregistry
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Reading this has changed my entire outlook.. I stumbled across your page while reading a Facebook post about Mr fairbanks , the person who shared the link to this page said something along the lines “this group in Florida is behind shutting down all our pages to support fairbanks ” not those exact words but I am so glad I clicked on the link and read all the way through. Though I have never or will i ever agree with what Fairbanks did. I will no longer just see a name , a red dot an automatically think the worst , or share the information publicly. I am guilty of thinking every name on that list meant the same thing. I am guilty of thinking if i receive a notification of a RSO was moving close to me , I need to protect my kids, and share the information .
I know now I was judging everyone the same and it isn’t my place to do so. I will now do my research before I share, if I even choose to share another change of address notification I get. I will encourage others to do the same. Leaving your page with a completely different outlook .
Thank you Jessi! Your comment made all my (now 18) years of advocacy worthwhile.
We are so fortunate to have an organization such as Florida Action Committee to inform, educate and take a stand for individuals who for the most part very misunderstood or misjudged. There are many similar organizations around the country that need our support. ‘Without restoration there is no justice’.
Amanda part of what troubles me is, had that man been on a registry earlier, that still might not have protected you from him.
I don’t even know if registration would have protected his other victims, unless it was neighbor kids that he was preying on specifically.
People put themselves on the registry by committing any one of a wide variety of registerable crimes. Some of them have since lived a crime-free life in the community years after completing their court-mandated treatment. And the proportion of registrants who have been serial child molesters— ie, touched a child, got caught, then sometime later went out and did it again anyway (such as you-know-who) is a small proportion. And even those weren’t necessarily targeting neighbor kids but exploiting a position of trust. Perhaps those are the people we want the registry to identify, but we might also find that information through a criminal background check.
So part of the problem is that the registries tend to give us a false sense of security. If my neighbor, a 50-year-old dad, committed a sexual assault while in high school before turning his life around, is it appropriate for the community to be notified that he is a sex offender? I wouldn’t mind knowing, but that wouldn’t necessarily be fair to his wife and kids, plus I wouldn’t necessarily want him to know my own family’s dirty laundry, either. Meanwhile, I have to worry about my kids’ soccer coach or youth mentor who have no criminal background at all. The whole issue is an exercise in frustration, but I am grateful that you are making your voice heard on this forum.
No its not fair , But I don’t think we should get rid of the registry I think they just need to change some things
Amanda
What is your opinion on this? Someone like myself who had never even had a speeding ticket before my arrest 30 years ago. I was ina consenual relationship but she was under 18. We got caught and her parents turned me in. I plead guilty and did my time. That was 30 years ago.
I have again,not even gotten a speeding ticket since my arrest 30 years ago. Do you think I should be on the registry for my entire life, having people come to my house and beat up my son, damaging my property or possibly killing me because they want me out of the area, even though they don’t even know me?
A private registry for just the police, at least for non repeaters would be a compromise. However, the registry should not have been applied retroactively to any of us. If it had existed when I got arrested, I would have gone to trial instead of taking a plea. The prosecutor lied also, I was supposed to get five years of probation, instead the judge gave me 26 years.
Took me 10 years of appeals to get that tossed after serving 10 years which was double what I agreed to. The courts and their officers can lie and get away with it just to win.
And, why should my family be attacked (Or me for that matter) by random strangers because of something they see on a website? ALL of our info is there. Where we live, our photos, what cars we drive, and more. Plus if we work somewhere, that info is registered as well.
My opinion is this like I’ve said in other posts there are flaws with the registry and I have many friends who have had the same experience as you not all people on the registry are dangerous like my dad
Amanda:
I’ve read your posts here for the last few days. First and foremost, my deepest sympathies for what you’ve endured as a kid. As far as I’m concerned, you have free reign to hate on your dad as much as you want, to include reveling in his death if you choose.
That said, please understand that Fairbanks is no hero. He’s a lifelong underachiever (Part time waitresses at our local Huddle House make more than the 18k/year he was paid as a “paraprofessional”) who wanted a little hero worship, shown by his confessing on social media before turning himself in to law enforcement. Had Condoluci not been home that day, he would have simply gone to another one of the registrants he was researching and done exactly the same thing. Heroes do what’s right simply because it’s right, without expecting praise or adoration for doing it. Fairbanks didn’t kill Condoluci for you or anyone else. He did it to become a celebrity, nothing more. There’s nothing heroic about that.
And finally, I strongly disagree with your statement that the registry needs to be changed for all the reasons I stated in my response to Jacob below. But I do thank you for acknowledging that not all registrants are cut from the same cloth and not calling for all registrants to be gunned down like he was. I’m guessing you have registered friends which likely had a hand in that.
Amanda
Thank you for being so kind to everyone in here. Most of the bad comments we get in here, call us monsters and leave comments that we should all be killed, or at least burn in Hell, or both.
That’s because their idiots and im sorry you have to deal with that.
No your not all bad people thats why I think they need to fix the registry. Those who are deemed a danger to society by the health board are the ones who need to be on the registry not those who made 1 mistake or those who were Deceived.
You bring up an important point Amanda— only a small number of states bother conducting individual risk assessments.
You touch on a debate we have even among ourselves here: reform or eliminate?
Certain countries (and even certain US states) maintain registries that are quite a bit different from ours. They are more cost-effective, less disruptive to families and communities, but with no corresponding increase in child victimization rates.
Some here believe that, unless you believe in total abolition of all forms of sex registration, you are a nincompoop. I try to keep things evidence-based, however.
Jacob:
It’s perfectly fair to keep things evidence-based as you stated. But where is the evidence that the registry should be maintained in any form? Outside of registry offenses, can anyone find one single crime that the registry played any role whatsoever in investigating since Megan’s Law was enacted? And if there are any, what information was on the registry that couldn’t have been found in any other place or database (specifically, NCIC and state counterparts) that LE routinely consults in the course of any other investigation?
Even in cases of registrants committing another sex crime, I’ve yet to run across an instance where the registry had anything to do with the investigation or capture. Those individuals were always identified by the victim or a cold case DNA hit. In fact, registry status is never known until after arrest or identification. So how can it be said that the registry prevents repeat sex crime (its original stated purpose)?
Is LE only a reasonable compromise? They already have a crime database that includes everything the registry does and can separate sex crimes from all others should they need to. Accordingly, I would argue it is not. Beyond that, LE harassment of registrants would likely continue with little effort by LE to keep it confidential, particularly during “compliance checks.”
Though limited, my research indicates that the only use LE has for the registry is to solicit larger grants to maintain it. From the handful of jurisdictions I’ve checked, less than half of the grant is actually used for that purpose even when counting the salaries of the officers that work in that department (which it shouldn’t). Many officers will privately agree that it is useless for investigative purposes despite public claims to the contrary.
I’ve never seen a proposed registry modification that could come anywhere close to accomplishing what it supposedly would any more than a chainsaw could be modified to fix a flat tire. That’s not saying that those that don’t believe the registry should be abolished are idiots, just misguided or maybe overly optimistic.
Two reasons for them to keep the registries:
#1 Money maker
#2 Punishment and shame
Of course they are not going to admit to either of these
I believe that polities (governments) always need a boogeyman.
Sometimes it was witches or devils.
Sometimes it was Jews.
Sometimes it was foreigners.
Sometimes it was Communists or Socialists.
NOW it is “sex predators”.
(And the words “predator”, “goat”, or “pig” de-humanizes the boogeyman and enables citizens to forget that they are human, thereby making it easier to persecute – even kill – them.)
Slot is part of the problem, not the solution.