BOSTON �?? Limousine companies would be required to check drivers’ criminal records, under legislation filed by Rep. William Lantigua, D-Lawrence, after a chauffeur driving teens to the Haverhill High School prom was found to be a registered sex offender  operating with a suspended license.

“If a person is going to be transporting people, especially at a school activity, the company should have an idea of the background,” Lantigua said. “Someone with a criminal record or a sex offender or with a significant felony should not be allowed to drive youngsters back and forth.”

On May 30, a group of teens were driven to the Haverhill High School prom by Troy Barrett, 29, of Lee, N.H. His employer, Ambassador Travel of Salisbury, did not know Barrett was a convicted sex offender in New Hampshire. He was convicted of aggravated felonious sexual assault on someone under 13. Barrett shuttled the teens while driving with a suspended license.

Barrett was fired, and the company is checking to ensure its other drivers have valid licenses.

Rep. Brian Dempsey, D-Haverhill, also supports requiring limo employers to request Criminal Offender Record Information, called CORI checks, from the state.

“What happened is alarming on many levels,” Dempsey said. “The most alarming is that they had teenage girls in a limo with a sex offender.”

Before signing onto Lantigua’s bill or filing his own legislation, Dempsey has asked lawyers with Registry of Motor Vehicle officials to see if the Legislature can require the background checks.

Dempsey also is meeting with representatives of the New England Livery Association in Haverhill tomorrow to get their thoughts on state legislation. The New England Livery Association, which represents limousine companies, backs mandating background checks on drivers.

“If you hire a gentleman and he’s driving a client, you need to know the background of that individual,” said Michael Pazzaneze, the association president.

Pazzaneze said his association already suggests employers check into their drivers’ background. It’s good sense, he said.

“You put a driver in a one-on-one situation with a client �?? you need to know the background before you hire them,” Pazzaneze said. “We pick people up. We know their habits, when they’re coming back (from a trip). If you hire that individual, you’re leaving yourself open to liability.”

Access to CORI checks has been a hot-button issue in Massachusetts. Civil libertarians have raised questions about whether CORI can be misused or deny felons who’ve completed their sentences from getting a second chance.

Gov. Deval Patrick earlier this year filed sweeping legislation that provided some protections to people out of prison and looking for work but also barred sex offenders’ histories from ever being sealed from public view.

Faran Fajana, an attorney with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, said Lantigua’s effort is unnecessary because employers can already ask the state to approve their access to CORI reports for a prospective hire.

The law does require certain employers, such as nursing homes, that deal with vulnerable people to do background checks.

Fajana worries that requiring limo companies to do CORI checks would open the door for a host of other businesses, including trucking companies and restaurants, that come into contact with teenagers. That, she said, would make it unfairly difficult for felons who have served their time to get work.

Lantigua said that he believes people deserve second chances, but that it’s important to protect children.

“I do believe in people redeeming themselves and giving a second opportunity,” Lantigua said. “At the same token, we need to protect society.”

CONCORD �?? Lawmakers plan to meet today to vet changes to two bills that deal with creating a new system for classifying sex offenders  and how to punish them.

New Hampshire is trying to develop a three-tier system for classifying sexual offenders and offenders against children.

It would make public an offender’s criminal history �?? whether it’s a minor offense, such as indecent exposure, or a more serious one such as the rape of a child.

The bill also proposes to eliminate or limit teens who have been put on the state’s current list because they had consensual sex with someone close in age, but not old enough to legally give consent.

Changes to the sex offender registry are being made in order to comply with the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, which is setting standards for all 50 states to develop a more detailed format of registering sex offenders.

Another bill aiming to increase penalties for those possessing child pornography also will be considered. That bill may ultimately determine how old a teen must be to legally consent to sex. Lawmakers are considering whether to keep the age of consent at 16 or increase it to 18.

That’s one of the differences that will be discussed today, when a group of House and Senate members meet in conference committee to negotiate proposed changes to both bills.

Last week, the Senate removed a House provision that would have required the state to collect DNA from all felons. Instead, the bill now seeks to require DNA samples from sex offenders and violent offenders.

The Senate also doesn’t want to publicly list where sex offenders work. Senators said they thought that could inadvertently punish employers.

Sen. Joseph Foster, D-Nashua, said he believes the differences between legislators are minor. He said senators have been seeking a shorter time span for minor offenders to be posted on the sex offender registry, from 15 years to 10.

Foster said if the committee can come to an agreement by noon Friday, the bills would have to be approved by the full House and Senate before moving to Gov. John Lynch’s desk.

New Hampshire has until next year to revamp its sex offender registry to comply with the Walsh Act. Lawmakers and state prosecutors have been working on the proposed system since 2006.

Rep. Gene Charron, D-Chester, is a lead sponsor for revamping the sex offender registry. He said he’s withholding his opinion on the proposed changes offered by the Senate until he can meet with the committee later this week. 

“I don’t want to lessen what we’ve worked on for a year and a half,” he said.

Charron said maintaining a DNA database is “critically important” and hopes the majority of the bill will remain intact.   Sex Offenders Registry

“He is a level 3 sex offender who has no business working at McDonald’s,” Quinn said.

See Sex Offenders Living In Your Area

Gagnon, a Level 3 offender, or the category considered most likely to reoffend, spent 27 years in jail after he pleaded guilty to multiple counts of rape. “All the doctors in the Massachusetts treatment center signed off on his release. They believe he is no longer sexually dangerous. I don’t think it is for this woman to decide that he is a sexual danger,” attorney William Korman said.

When Quinn found out that Gagnon working at McDonald’s, she called the manager and he was fired.

“I didn’t invade his privacy. He violated five women or children, whatever his convictions are, and he made it public — not me,” Quinn said.

Gagnon filed a lawsuit alleging that information on sex offenders from the Web site cannot be used “to commit a crime or to engage in illegal discrimination or harassments of an offender.”

“Her activities were specifically prohibited by the Sex Offender Registry Board. As a matter of fact, what we allege that what she did was a crime. When she goes on to the Web site, (users) agree that they will not use the Web site and what they learn there to harass somebody,” Korman said.

The lawsuit also claims emotional distress and invasion of privacy. Gagnon is also suing McDonald’s for breach of contract.

“To call that abuse is the ultimate irony because, indeed, that is what registries are supposed to entitle us to do. That is the point of the registry — to give us information that we then use to better protect ourselves and our children,” defense attorney Wendy Murphy said.

Murphy is defending Quinn for free.

“We are supposed to know who he is, where he is and where he is working so we can say, ‘You can’t be there.’ ‘You can’t do that.’ And we will watch you because we don’t want you to offend again,” Murphy said.

“What she is supposed to do is whatever she feels she needs to do to protect her children. But there is a qualitative difference between going on the Sex Offender Registry Board to learn information about who lives around you and where they work, and then take affirmative steps as a result of the information that she learned,” Korman said.

Quinn said she was concerned for the safety of her 13-year-old son who goes to the restaurant.

“He can go work anywhere else except where there are children. Go work in a warehouse or drive a truck, go work at the prisons and clean their floors,” she said.

The company that owns the McDonald’s, Napoli Group LLC of Windham, N.H., said in a statement Tuesday, “The safety and well-being of our customers and employees is a top priority. We take these matters seriously. Because this is a pending legal matter, it would be inappropriate to further comment or speculate.”

Gagnon said McDonald’s knew about his record when he was hired.

In the last two years, Jackson County sheriff’s investigators have worked day and night tracking down sex offenders who’ve failed to follow state law and register their home address.

Investigator Hope Thornton handles sex crimes in Jackson County and her No. 1 priority these days is to find the last of the county’s non-compliant offenders - a convicted rapist and one of most wanted criminals featured in the Sun Herald over the last year.

“Due to Hurricane Katrina and misplacement, the Jackson County area has acquired more sex offenders,” Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said. “As a result of the firm stand against registered sex offenders, we now only have one non-compliant in our county. This is a result of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department and the communities working together to make our communities safer.”

Since July 2007, the Sheriff’s Department has arrested more than 30 non-compliant offenders, with a total of 164 registered sex offenders currently living in Jackson County.

Because of a spike in the number of sex offenders after Hurricane Katrina, Byrd said his investigators have made it their mission to make sure the public is protected from them.

“We hit the streets, work with employers and other agencies to track these folks,” Byrd said. “Sometimes, we’ll be checking to make sure someone’s compliant and we’ll find out they’re not. Personally, I still can’t understand why they’re even let out of jail. But we do the legwork to make sure they’re where they’re supposed to be.”

Every week, Thornton and other investigators grab 15 or so sex offender files and hit the streets to verify their information.

That’s what Thornton was doing in September when she found out Jesse James Sims, already arrested for non-compliance in 2007, had vanished again.

He’d gotten out of jail on a $5,000 bond for the first non-compliance charge and disappeared within weeks. State law requires sex offenders to register every 90 days.

Since then, Thornton has been tracking Sims’ every move, talking to his former neighbors and others to get the tips she needs to catch up with him. Her last reported sighting of Sims was at U.S. 90 motel in Pascagoula. Thornton missed him by a couple of days.

Now, she’s hoping the public will help her in her search because she knows Sims isn’t going to give up easily.

“Now, he has nothing left to lose,” she said. “He’s been indicted on the other charge. He knows his bond is going to be revoked. He knows he’s going back to jail. And he knows I’ve been looking for him because I had his cell phone for the first month, and I left messages. He wouldn’t answer.”

In addition to tips, Thornton relies on information from the Mississippi Sex Offender Registry Office and other law enforcement agencies to track offenders like Sims as well as other sex offenders who move to the state without registering.

In a lot of cases, it’s the public who first tips off authorities.

A Gautier resident, for example, alerted authorities this year to a sex offender who’d moved here from out of state two years ago and never registered.

In a matter of days, sheriff’s investigators arrested the offender. Now, he’s behind bars, with his probation revoked and a five-year jail sentence for non-compliance facing him.

“Right now, we’ve got a upper hand on these offenders,” Thornton said. “It’s hard work, but it really matters. We do this because if someone doesn’t stand up for these victims, then who will? I feel every victim has a right to know where their pedophile is.”

“We met in our second year of high school and have remained friends ever since,” Piotrowski said. They kept in touch and were there for each other’s life-changing moments �?? until March 15.

12:00 AM CDT on Tuesday, March 25, 2008

The changes will also allow people to sign up for e-mail alerts when an offender moves into their neighborhood.

“I’m being told spring,” before it is ready, said Tela Mange, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, which runs the registry. “Spring runs through June.”

DPS is already getting numerous calls about the new online services.

The Web site now provides each offender’s name, date of birth, home address, a physical description and photo. It also includes the crime committed and the victim’s age and gender.

Some hail adding the job information to the registry as an additional crime-fighting tool, but others worry that making places of employment easily accessible could harm offenders who completed their sentences and are trying to succeed in the free world.

“The more information people have about who may potentially have access to their children, the better that is,” Ms. Mange said.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott has said employment status and location for registered sex offenders are public information.

A preliminary look at the jobs data shows the offenders are from all walks of life: cowboys and clerks, company presidents and church pastors. They work in small towns such as Yoakum and big cities such as Dallas. Many are self-employed, and thousands are unemployed, retired or disabled.

Posting specific information about jobs could be potentially “devastating,” said Helga Dill, chairwoman of Texas Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants.

Convicted felons already have difficulty finding jobs, Ms. Dill said, but when the information is public, “these employers are not going to even look at the capability of this offender.”

Many sex offenders “are trying really hard to fit back into society,” she said, “and when you have a sex offender label you might as well not try.”

Ms. Dill said she also doesn’t think the information will make the public safer. Most sex offenders are not predators or pedophiles, she said, and their rate of re-offending is low.

“They have the second-lowest recidivism rate after murder,” she said.

Rebecca Bernhardt, director of policy development for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said the fundamental issue is whether providing employment information “makes us more safe or less safe,” she said.

“If it leads to offenders losing their jobs, that’s destabilizing �?? even in anybody’s life. And if we’re concerned about the risk of folks re-offending, being less connected, not having gainful employment, not having a roof over your head �?? these are things that put people in a more vulnerable position if they’re susceptible to having run-ins with the law.”