Posted on 06/22/2007 10:04:37 AM PDT by Graybeard58
HARTFORD William Santos unsurprisingly didn't reveal he was a convicted sex offender on a MySpace profile.
But he used his real name, allowing law enforcement to track him down easily.
Today, the 21-year-old Waterbury man is back behind bars, the second convicted sex offender from Connecticut found on the popular social networking site in violation of his special parole.
Santos will remain in custody while the Board of Pardons and Paroles reviews his case. The board hasn't scheduled a hearing for him yet.
Santos is one of thousands of convicted sex offenders from around the country found to have had profiles on MySpace under their real names, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said Thursday.
MySpace recently provided law enforcement officials in all 50 states with the names of more than 17,000 people identified as sex offenders who had created profiles on the site.
MySpace found and disclosed the names of 264 sex offenders from Connecticut, and Blumenthal expects the number to grow.
"Convicted sex offenders violating their parole on these sites is outrageous, but they also present a clear, urgent danger to our children. They are mingling with minors on a site that has to be made safer," Blumenthal said.
Santos was convicted in October 2000 of second-degree sexual assault on a minor and risk of injury to a minor. He registered on the state's sex offender list last June.
Santos was living on Woodtick Road in Waterbury when the Department of Correction remanded him back into custody earlier this week.
On May 30, Christopher Montefusco, 30, of West Haven, was the first convicted sex offender returned to state custody for posting a profile on MySpace.
Blumenthal said Montefusco and Santos are just the start of a statewide roundup.
"We are continuing to review the list of convicted sex offenders that we have received from MySpace," he said.
MySpace and similar Internet sites allow users to create online profiles with photos, music and personal information, and let them send messages to one another and even browse other profiles.
Convicted sex offenders are regularly prohibited from using a computer or the Internet, or accessing social networking sites as conditions of parole in Connecticut.
Both Montefusco and Santos stand accused of violating the terms of their paroles by establishing profiles on MySpace without the required permission of their parole officers.
"I am absolutely astonished and shocked by the numbers and the severity of the convicted sex offenders on this site, and they are only the tip of the predator problem," Blumenthal said.
He said no one knows the number of convicted sex offenders who are using assumed names in MySpace profiles, or the number of online predators who haven't been convicted of a sex crime.
"What is most frightening is what we don't know — the numbers of predators on this site who may be using aliases and who have never been convicted," Blumenthal said.
The attorney general renewed his call to require age verification, identity checks, parental permission and other measures to protect children on MySpace and other sites.
Blumenthal co-chairs a 50-state coalition that requested the information to verify MySpace's representations about its efforts to remove registered sex offenders from its site.
He said MySpace is cooperating in the nationwide effort to track down convicted sex offenders using the networking site.
bump
As was I. Our own investigation into my daughters page resulting in her removing er computer and only under adult supervision can she access the internet. Her page stated clearly she was 12, but the amount of attempted contacts by adults was sickening. The brazeness and sexual comments of the contacts, caused us to call the Baltimore County Police. I get a knot in my stomach when I even hear the word myspace...
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