"Through Wisdom and Knowledge, We Rise From the Ashes!" -- This is Once Fallen's blog for sex offender commentaries, OpEds and assorted elucidations. For sex offender research, support, and advocacy, visit www.oncefallen.com today.
Below is an Op-Ed I wrote for the Sun-Sentinel after Lauren Book was arrested for trespassing. Of course, the Sun-Sentinel refuses to publish anything negative about the Book Crime Family.
Politicians should be held to the same standards as everyone else
Derek Logue, April 5, 2023
In 2015, I engaged in a peaceful protest in Tallahassee against now-Senate Democrat leader Lauren Book. Book tried having me arrested. Then she filed a restraining order against me in an attempt to prevent me in organizing future protests. She even sent pictures of me to local law enforcement and had me arrested on theft charges.
I was arrested in Ohio and spent six days on the road in an extradition vehicle with no air conditioning. By the time I reached the Broward County Jail, my blood pressure was 200/140 and my feet had swollen 4 times the normal size. I was held an additional time in jail to be forced to register as a “sex offender” before being release. I spent years defending myself against this barrage of false allegations brought on by Florida State Senator Lauren Book.
Every single false allegation made against me by Lauren Book was ultimately tossed out of court. See Logue v. Book, 297 So. 3d 605.
But that was not enough for Lauren Book. In 2021, Book added an addendum to CS/HB 921, a bill addressing cyberstalking, to make public criticism of people like her a felony. In 2022, Book sided with Republicans to pass CS/HB1571, the controversial DeSantis bill that outlawed many types of public protest. Needless to say, Lauren Book is no friend of free speech.
Fast forward to the night of April 3, 2023, when this same state senator who tried to imprison me for exercising the right to peacefully assemble by the state capitol in 2015 was arrested for engaging in a protest. Sure, Senator Book was detained. Sure, Senator Book was handcuffed (very carefully), Sure, Senator Book was taken to the police station with the other ten arrested protesters. But state law prevents Senator Book’s (and Nikki Fried’s) mugshot from being released, while the faces of the commoners who protested were published. Senator Book was the first to be released. The police assured us that she was treated with the utmost care. Despite the fact that I was innocent and she was arrested in the commission of a crime, we were treated vastly different.
Florida State Senator Lauren Book should have been treated the same way as any other accused criminal. Keep her in a cell for hours for processing then moved to another cell to await your first appearance up to 72 hours later. Feed her food not fit for human consumption. Strong-arm those handcuffs on her even if she isn’t resisting. Make her sit in a sweltering van for six days. Release that mugshot and make it look hideous for added effect.
Alternately, perhaps we can treat the common folk who stand accused of offense with the same air of dignity as Senator Book was treated. We have seen in both Tallahassee and in New York City that the criminal justice system works differently for the rich and powerful than it does for the average citizen. That is something that needs to change.
Below is the speech I gave in front of the SCOTUS Building in Washington DC on Tuesday, 3/7/2023, as part of a vigil to remember the lives lost thanks to the rulung in Smith v. Doe, 538 US 84 (2003), which had claimed the registry is not punitive (punishment) and therefore we don't deserve constitutional protections.
Just ONE DAY after my speech, on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, a person convicted of a sexual offense over 40 years ago named Lawrence V. Scully, of Grand Marais, MN, was beaten to death in his home by a deranged man who had falsely accused him of stalking kids to justify the murder. The MN Star-Tribune had reported that the murderer, Levi Axtell, filed a bogus restraining order against Scully (claiming he was "stalking" a 22 month old going to day care and referring to Scully as a "convicted pedophile") that was eventually dismissed. "Axtell posted on Facebook a photo of someone pointing a gun behind the words "Only cure for pedophiles. A bullet." He added the comment, "People always ask me why I hate pedophiles. They assume I've been abused. But really I think being protective is just an Axtell trait."" Scully had been convicted of an offense in 1979 and was released in 1982 and had apparently been offense-free for 40 years. (Lawrence's offense predates the registry by over 15 years and was likely never registered, BUT when he ran for public office in 2014, a local reported drudged up his record.)
Chief SCOTUS Justice John "Price Club" Roberts, the blood of Lawrence Scully is on your hands.
DEREK W LOGUE OF ONCEFALLEN.COM'S SPEECH FOR DC VIGIL, MARCH 7, 2023 AT 9AM
We are gathered here today because twenty years ago, in this very building beside us, six United States Supreme Court Justices published Smith v Doe, a terrible decision that has destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives, all based on lies and misinformation. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy upheld the draconian practice of forcing those convicted of sexual offenses to provide private information for a publicly accessible registry. Justice Kennedy relied heavily on the false premise that recidivism among those convicted of sexual offenses was “frightening and high.” Justice Kennedy also relied upon the arguments of John Roberts, who at the time was working on behalf of the state of Alaska, and argued the act of sex offense registration was no more intrusive than applying for a “Price Club” membership.
Smith v Doe is terrible decision has caused in measurable harm to every person forced to register over the past two decades. Constitutional protections often taken for granted by the average American citizen were stripped from persons forced to register, and we are treated like second class citizens. Smith v Doe opened a Pandora’s Box of increasingly draconian laws, from residency restriction laws to restrictions on employment to lifetime GPS, and virtually every law directed at persons forced to register use the Smith v Doe decision as the basis for these increasingly oppressive laws.
Six US Supreme Court justices condemned us to death – Former chief justice William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, and Clarence Thomas. If you include current Chief Justice John “Price Club” Roberts, seven SCOTUS justices in total have stained their hands with our blood and the blood of those who died for the sake of this “Price Club.”
Washington DC is a place for memorials of all kinds. This casket, built by a Registered Person is our own makeshift memorial to remember the countless lives lost to one of the worst US Supreme Court decisions in human history. To date, I am aware of hundreds of deaths that can be tied, whether directly or indirectly, to the public registry. And this may only be scratching the surface, since we rely heavily on news reports, and crimes against Persons Forced to Register are highly underreported. Much like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, we have our own tomb for the untold numbers who have died because of the terrible decision rendered by six justices in the building standing behind my back 20 years ago.
Despite not knowing the names of every person who died because of the registry, I cannot possibly cover every single story here. Throughout the rest of my eulogy, I will share the names of people who have died in various ways as the result of the public sex offense registry. Not everyone who was killed was a Registered Person. Some were loved ones like a family member or a friend. A few were falsely accused of a crime. A few were simply mistaken for a PFR. But in all of these cases, the registry, upheld by the six SCOTUS justices in 2003, are directly responsible for these deaths.
I shall begin by reading the names of those whose murders have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be directly tied to the registry, whether by the online registry, community notification, or notices given out by law enforcement. This does not even include unsolved murders where motivation could not be definitively proven or where the media downplayed the role the registry may have taken in these murders.
•John Mayo, Salt Lake City UT, died 5/9/2005
•Hank Eisses & Victor Vasquez, Bellingham WA, Died 7/13/2005
•Joseph Grey, Milo ME and William Elliot, Corinth ME, Died 4/16/2006. Both were murdered by the same vigilante.
•Lee Alexander,Brandon FL, 5/14/2007
•Michael A. Dodele, Lakeport CA, 11/20/2007
•David Coody, Jr. and Chad Wiggins, both non-RPs who were murdered because they rented a home to a PFR, Echols Co. GA, Died 5/28/2008
•Neil Hayes, Sacramento CA, Died 1/1/2009 (murdered by white supremacists)
•Silas Miller , Moss Point MS, Died 6/2/2009
•Edward Vaughn Keeley, North Palm Springs CA, Died 8/10/2009 (murdered by a white supremacist)
•David Morrison, Las Vegas NV, 12/17/2010
•Bobby Ray Rainwater, San Juan Capistrano CA, 12/2/2011
•Gary Blanton, Port Angeles, WA, and Jerry Ray, Sequim WA, Died 6/2/2012, were both murdered by the same vigilante
•James Grant, Elkhart IN, Died 8/5/2012
•Lawrence J. Lewis, Molunkus Township ME, Died 3/12/2013
•Charles Parker, along with his wife, Gretchen Parker, a non-RC, Jonesville SC, Died 7/22/2013. The murderers were Neo-Nazis who wrote a manifesto calling for the murders of Registered Persons AND their
•Lawrence Ballesteros, Fresno CA, Died 4/3/2014
•Jonathan Tarvin, Doniphan MO, Died 4/26/2016
•Jerry Caudill, Logan Co. KY, Died 6/7/2017
•Alfred Wilheim, and Rhonda Ballow (a non-RC dating Alfred) Las Vegas NV, Died 12/26/2017
•Jerry Wayne Scott, Zwolle LA, Died July 2017 and Adam L Jeter, Zwolle LA, Died 12/15/2017, were both killed by the same vigilante.
•Matteio Condoluci, Omaha NE, Died 5/16/2020
•James Christopher McClernon, Evansville IN, Died 7/27/2022
Here are the names of other persons Forced to Register who were murdered; in these cases, the Registrant’s status was used to justify the murder:
•10/10/2003: Matthew Lee Raynor (non-RC) and Russell Charles Markvardsen, WA
•12/6/2003: Joseph Pilger, KY
•1/28/2004: Richard L. Tunley, NY
•6/13/2004: James Patrick Seldomridge, IN
•4/1/2007: William "Stoney" McCarragher, AZ, whose killer was self-professed serial killer to rid the world of "less than desirables"
•11/30/2007: Daniel G. Sorensen, MI, victim of a “thrill killing”
•12/1/2007: Davion Crow TX
•5/24/2008: Hano Bailey: IA
•6/14/2008: William Joseph Hough, FL
•8/15/2008: Raymond Pike NY
•9/2/2008Cristobal Cuellar, NM
•8/23/2009: Dennis McCarthy, MI: Police believe victim was targeted because of his RC status, wife of victim was in the home and ignored by intruder
•8/25/2009: John Stouffer, OH: One of the killers was pregnant, believed she would lose the baby due to victim's RC status
•3/24/2010: Willard Rex Wright: WV: Stated the victim "had it coming", taunted victim while killing him
•9/14/2012: Constance "Connie" Cole (non-RC), AR: Friend of RC that was target of murder
•9/14/2012: John Poff, AR
•9/26/2012: Derrick Vaccianna, FL
•12/20/2012: Brian James Brinson, TX: Plan was to rob victim as retaliation for alleged sex crime
•1/24/2013: Arthur Schroeder WA: Tried claiming victim, an 82 yr old man in wheelchair, assaulted them to justify robbery-murder
•6/22/2013: David Bailey, KY
•8/12/2013: Donald Wayne Crisp, CA, murder remains unsolved
•9/19/2013: Donald Robinson, MD
•5/8/2014: Ryan Thomas Wells, TX, unsolved murder
•5/26/2014: Tara Vance (non-RC) & Daniel Marker Jr.Charles: OH, vigilantes burned down home of RC
•8/18/2014: Joseph Moisa & Michael Henderson, WA, falsely accused of “grooming”
•8/26/2014: Rolland Lee Tockey, AZ
•9/17/2014: Norman Bill Williams, FL
•12/24/2014: Steven D Manuel, KS
•1/5/2015James Naylor, AL: Killer was not charged even though had posted flyers in the neighborhood & had harassed victim
•1/27/2015: Johnny Singleton, SC
•8/29/2016: Wesley Dee Nay, UT
•1/9/2018:Roderick White (non-RP): CA, killed after a FB page identified White as an RP, though no match on registry could be found by media
•On 5/13/2019, Steven Stryker was murdered by his FloriDUH Court appointed guardian, who capped disabled Stryker's feeding tube despite warnings not to; signed do-not-resuscitate order against Steven's wishes.
•8/10/2019: Jace Decker, a non-RC, was beaten into a coma because the killers falsely believed he was a registered sex offender
•3/24/2020: Elijah Raider, KY
•7/2/2020:Mark Pitts, MO
•10/8/2020: Steven L Weaver, NE: The killers bragged to cop they were hunting victim down before committing the murder; Charles died in a car crash with the victim
•1/15/2021: Robert Braman, Sr. and Samuel Compton Christopher, MI: The killer stated on Facebook he planned to kill RPs
•5/12/2021: Ralph Mendez, Rory Banks, CA: The killer was a Qanon follower, wife says he used registry website and talked about PRs before murder
•5/22/2021: Daniel Sanders, TX
Being accused or convicted of a sexual offense makes many a favorite target for jailhouse bullies. But the following names are Registrants who were murdered in jail or prison while being detained on accusations of Failure To Register:
•10/14/2005: Peter Brian Deakin, Mohave Co Jail, UT (killer was a white supremacist)
•2/14/2008: Shannon Lee Grailing, CSP-Sacramento, CA
•12/2/2009: Robert Running Bear Jr, USP Marion, IL
•11/25/2011: Mark Frederick Hanson, Sterling CF, CO
•2/21/2012: Stuart Brooks, East Mississippi CF
•9/5/2012: Eddie Nelson Jr, Muscogee Co Jail, GA. H was placed in cell with black man looking to murder whites
•12/8/2012: Matthew Scheile, Cummins Unit, AR
•6/4/2013: Shon Demetrius McClain, Wake Co. Det Ctr, NC
•12/14/2014: Edward Larson, Sacramento Co Jail, CA
•8/28/2016: Charles Jones, Brevard Co Jail, FL. Charges later dropped, medical negligence (burst bowels)
•7/29/2017: Harley Holt, Algoa CC, MO
•6/18/2018: James Mills, Pinellas Co Jail, FL
•7/1/2019: David Kever, Santa Rose CI, FL
•10/1/2019: Mark Lawhead, Oklahoma SP. Murderer bragged he "smoked a Savage"
•3/11/2021: John Sullivan, San Quentin SP, CA
•3/15/2022: Scott Gunter, Wasco SP, CA
But not all murders were at the hands of vigilantes. PFRs have also died due to denial of services and neglect. Finding low-income housing, assisted care facilities and nursing homes is a growing problem since many programs refuse to take in a PFR, and many of the programs that accept a PFR tend to provide inadequate service. Here are just a few names of people who have died due to denial of services:
•Joseph Heverin of Dover DE died on 2/25/2008. He had Huntington’s disease, an inherited disorder that causes nerve cells (neurons) in parts of the brain to gradually break down and die. Joseph Herevin was denied entry into an adequate assisted care facility due to his status. He died when someone at a mental health who was not properly trained in Huntington’s disease fed him a grilled cheese sandwich, and Heverin choked to death.
•Thomas Pauli of Grand Rapids MI died 1/26/2009. He was denied shelter due to the state’s residency restriction laws, justified by Smith v Doe, and froze to death in sub-zero temperatures.
•Studies have shown that chronic homelessness shortens lifespans by about 15 years. Thomas Craig, San .Francisco, CA, Died Nov. 18, 2010, and Nicholas Chaykovski, San Francisco, CA, Died Feb. 18, 2010, had health issues but could not receive proper medical care due to registry status.
•In January 2020, Charles Hobbs was detained on suspicion of FTR in Miami FL. When the COVID pandemic began, a judge ordered him released from jail and placed in home confinement, given his multiple underlying conditions of congenital heart failure, kidney failure and hypertension. But the jail refused to release him, and he ultimately died of COVID on 5/2/2020.
As with murders, there is simply no way to know how many people have committed suicide because of the registry. Few of these suicides made headlines so suicide rates among Persons Forced to Register remain underreported. Here are names of a few Registered Persons who took their own lives:
•Justin Fawcett was 17 when he had consensual relations with a 14-year-old classmate. On March 19, 2004, he took his own life. Seven years later, the MI SOR unit had sent the parents a letter notifying them Justin would be excluded from the public registry and was eligible to have his name removed from the registry.
•Clovis Ivan Claxton, Ocala FL, 4/24/2005, who killed himself after fliers in the neighborhood declared him a “child rapist”
•The body of David Allen Bolivar was found on Thanksgiving day 2016 on a beach in Broward Co FL. He was forced into homelessness by the laws championed by Florida Lobbyist Ron Book.
•The threat of registration alone may be enough to compel someone to commit suicide. On 8/28/2009, William Evans of St Augustine, fearing a false conviction for rape, fled the court, and while he was at home taking his own life, the jury had read the verdict in his absence, declaring him not guilty. And on 10/2/2013, a 15 year old from Huntsville AL named Christian Adamek, who already suffered from depression, committed suicide days after being threatened with inclusion on the registry for streaking at a football game.
Smith v Doe based much of their ruling off Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346 (1997), which determined civil commitment for Persons convicted of sexual offenses is also punitive. As a result, many people have been sent to civil commitment centers to rot, and hundreds have died in these concentration camps. Even today, we do not have an accurate picture of the number of deaths because some of these concentration camps censor attempts to pass along relevant information or provide misinformation.
•As of June 8, 2022, 30 men were known to have died in the Texas Civil Commitment Program. The Texas Civil Commitment Office claims only three, so perhaps they forgot to add the zero?
•As of August 18, 2022, 95 registrants have died in the MSOP in Moose Lake and St Peter MN, while only a handful have been released since the program was created in 1993.
•One activist sent me a list of 104 registrants who have died in Florida’s civil commitment centers.
•While I lack complete numbers for deaths in NY, a news investigation reported two deaths in the NY civil commitment centers. One of the men who died had a history of swallowing things and required constant supervision. Workers told police that the man likely swallowed a wad of newspaper while in the bathroom and choked. Police ruled the death an accident.
New York is one of a handful of states that detain people beyond their release dates if they lack definitive housing. UT, AL, IL, and KY have all reportedly kept people in prisons beyond the end of sentence. In KY, Kentucky, five RPFs been “violated at the gate” — that is, found to have violated the conditions of their release before they even left the prison gates, in 2015. One of them died in custody three months later. Many prisoners died during COVID outbreaks, and during the initial outbreak, around 300 people in Illinois were held beyond their release dates.
And even after law enforcement agencies shut down most services during the COVID outbreak, many of us were forced to continue to register, exposing us to a highly contagious and potentially fatal disease.
Over the years, a number of people lost their lives in a different way. They sacrificed their time and effort and ultimately their lives for the sake of advocating against these draconian laws. We honor their sacrifice:
•Mary Duval, OK, Died 6/19/2011
•Ron Daniels of CA, Died in 2013
•The Rev. Dr. C. David Hess, Rochester NY, Died 3/7/2014. In a final email to his state Representative, Rev. Hess stated, “At least my death will get me off the registry. :-) I had hoped for a different exit.”
•eAdvocate, died in January 2018, and another man I just knew as David, who worked behind the scenes for many years, died 7/28/2018.
•Gregory Lauby, Wymore NE, Died 1/25/2023
Finally, we remember the millions who are either currently on the registry, soon to be placed on the registry, those recently removed from the registry, and all who stand with us. In many ways, the public registry has already murdered all of us. We are in many ways The Walking Dead. We are alive and yet we are not allowed to live life to the fullest, restricted in all aspects in our lives—where we can live, work, travel, leisure, and sometimes, even with whom we can establish any kind of bond. We suffer social ostracism. We suffer denial of housing, employment, and social services. We suffer denial of assistance common protections afforded to others during global pandemics and natural disasters. We suffer harassment, vandalism, assaults, and even murder. People encourage us to commit suicide or mutilate our bodies. Some states mark our ID cards and Driver’s Licenses, while the US State Dept. marks the passports of many PFRs.
And even when we want to leave the US for good, the so-called “Angel Watch” program, a service of International Megan’s Law, notifies the nations where we plan to visit or to emigrate. And both visitors and Ex-pats have experienced harassment by law enforcement officials and neighbors. The US had stated in the passage of IML that they intended to spread the American concept of Megan’s Law across the globe.
And all of this pain and suffering can be directly tied to Smith v. Doe. This is the mess you helped create, Chief Justice John “Price Club” Roberts. Do the right thing and clean up this mess you created.
Summary: This year, I had more new contacts than any other year. Many were prisoners, which is unsurprising since I respond to prisoner inquiries and print out some materials for them.
Most of the activism performed by OnceFallen is either the maintenance of the OnceFallen.com website, responding to inquiries, or through prisoner outreach. When needed, OnceFallen is willing to attend activist events, conduct media interviews, and legislative meetings addressing sex offense laws when necessary. OnceFallen runs on a shoestring budget but rarely needs donations unless the need involves travel.
OnceFallen major accomplishments in 2022:
1. Offered assistance to, and attended, a rally against Civil Commitment in Austin, Texas
2. Completed the 3rd Edition of Your Life on The List.
3. Wrote four articles for The Crime Report. No media contacts were made this year, however.
INITIAL CONTACT STATS
Total New Contacts 2022 – 710 (667 in 2021, +43, a 9% increase over 2021)
Reasons for initial contact, in order of most to least common reasons for first contact. Please note, this is only for INITIAL contact, and in the case of prisoners, it may begin with a “general info” contact followed by a later resource request: Housing Leads (165), Legal info or referrals (90), General Info (89), ICoN prisoner newsletter (62), State Law questions (50), Probation/Parole issues (28), Prisoner/Jail issues (25) Book/Your Life on The List (23), Activism (23), ARM surveys (14), Harassment (11), Thank You notes (10), and Employment issues (10). The rest were specific questions not listed.
New contacts were spread across 44 US States, DC, and the USVI, in addition to at least one contact from Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, and Singapore. I made no known contact with anyone from AK, HI, ID, MT, MS, and RI in 2022.
States ranked from most to least inquiries: Wisconsin (70); FloriDUH (56); Ohio (35); Texas (29); Georgia & Missouri (20 each); Illinois & California (17 each); New York (15); Michigan (14); Pennsylvania (13); Virginia (12); Kansas (11); Arkansas, New Jersey, & Washington (10 each); Colorado, Indiana, & Tennessee (9 each); N. Carolina & Oklahoma (7 each); West Virginia (6); Arizona & Oregon (5 each); Kentucky (4); Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, & Minnesota (3 each); DC, Delaware, Louisiana, Nebraska, The Netherlands, Nevada, and Vermont (2 each); Denmark, Germany, Maine, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Singapore, Utah, US Virgin Is., and Wyoming (1 each). 228 ever mentioned location
Initial Contact Type from most to least common: Corrlinks (212), email (216), letter/postal mail (133), phone (91), text (39), Facebook (12), LinkedIn (1), Twitter (1)
New contacts by month; January (106), February (52), March (73), April (50), May (43), June (52), July (46), August (64), September (61), October (64), November (38), December (61)
Corrlinks Informational Newsletter (ICoN) subscribers: At the end of 2022, I had 1315 total Corrlinks subscribers (up from 1196 in 2021), but of those, 392 are state prisoners (slightly up from 385 in 2021), and because it costs extra to send email to state prisoners, these 392 do not receive monthly newsletters. That leaves 923 federal and CCA prisoners receiving the newsletters. In 2021, there were 811 subscribers, so this is an increase of 112 subscribers, or 8.7%.
Letter Stats: OnceFallen received 286 total requests by mail (note: many were repeat requests), which is 51 (15.1%) less than last year.
Financial Resources & Expenses
Financial support decreased over 2021 numbers by about 18%. Since OnceFallen typically operates on a shoestring budget, donations, particularly large donations, are generally not needed. I was invited to take part in a rally against Civil Commitment in Texas, which was the only action that required significant funds, and thus significant fundraising efforts. Typical expenses include supplies related to prisoner outreach, including envelopes, stamps, printer toner, phone expenses, the occasional free book to prisoners, etc. I do not expect to take part in any public awareness events in 2023 so I expect even less financial support due to a lower need to raise funds in 2023.
In 2022 the federal government decreased the amount of money individuals can collect from online transactions from $20k to $600, so OnceFallen suspended all online transactions. This is likely the reason behind the decline in donations. But since I have no plans to participate in public events in 2023, this is nothing to worry about.
