Assault at nursing home raises questions about why sex offender was living there

3-21-17 New York:

Thomas Moore spent more than 20 years in prison for sexually abusing hospitalized women who were elderly, disabled or incapacitated.

But when time came to release him last year, state prison officials faced a problem. Indigent and with no family, the lifelong Queens resident had nowhere to go. Prison officials struggled to find a facility willing to accept the 62-year-old disabled sex offender. Indeed, Moore stayed at the Fishkill Correctional Facility three months longer than he was supposed to as the state shopped around his application.

Moore had no previous connection to Western New York, but late last year he was accepted at Waterfront Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Buffalo – where he lived surrounded by elderly, disabled and incapacitated women.

Barely a month after he moved into Waterfront, Moore was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a fellow resident in her bed.

"It was like throwing the fox in the hen house,” said Dr. Charles P. Ewing of the University at Buffalo, an attorney and forensic psychologist who has studied sex offenders and the law.

Authorities accused Moore of entering the room of another Waterfront resident at about midnight on Jan. 3, pulling off her blanket and molesting her. Police arrested Moore nine days later, charging him with sexual abuse of a person incapable of giving consent and with endangering the welfare of a physically disabled person.

Sex offender with Alzheimer's says he can't remember abuse, gets 2 years in jail

4-10-15 New York:

Fabius, NY -- A Cortland County man told authorities he can't remember sexually abusing two children a decade ago.

John Webb, 66, of 104 Pine Hills Trailer Park, Homer, was sentenced today to two years in jail for the abuse.

He was arrested Oct. 9, 2013 after a Fabius girl reported one of the incidents to school officials, who contacted Child Protective Services, according to Onondaga County sheriff's deputies. A second victim came forward later.

The abuse apparently happened a decade ago. Webb, who has advanced Alzheimer's Disease, told authorities he just didn't remember it, his lawyer, Robert Baska, said in court.

New bill would remove sex offenders from group homes

Do all lawmakers have a brain the size of a pea? Here we see a bill supposedly to protect folks in group homes, there because of a physical or mental need, displacing folks who have the same need but are on a registry for a former sex offense many years ago. OK, now what do these pea brained lawmakers do with the folks their bill displaced? These are still citizens with a Americans with Disability Act need, who could use that Act to sue the state for discrimination.

3-17-15 New York:

It was a story that left a lot of people outraged. In one of our exclusive New York State Exposed segments, we told you about the state moving sex offenders into group homes right in the middle of neighborhoods.

Now, if passed, a new bill would ban sex offenders from being housed along with people with developmental disabilities; people lawmakers say are the most vulnerable in our society.

On Monday, we followed up with the Cades who live right near a group home on North Road. We checked. There is still a registered sex offender living there. The Cades feel some relief hearing about the senate bill, but they say they won’t rest until this bill becomes law, and they get some new neighbors.

“You never know, if you’re walking in your yard or on the street just going for a walk, who you’re going to run into,” said Beth Cade, lives next to group home.

Assemblyman sues agency for information on placing sex offenders in suburban Buffalo

12-7-2014 New York:

ALBANY, New York — The state's placement of six convicted sex offenders at adjoining group homes for the disabled in suburban Buffalo a year ago upset neighbors to the point that many marched in protest.

Now their assemblyman is suing his own government for an explanation why the men are living in a residential neighborhood near a park frequented by children.

Assemblyman Michael Kearns said he's been unable to get sufficient answers personally or formally under New York's Freedom of Information Law, leading to the lawsuit.

"We have a right to know why the placements are happening," Kearns said. "Why did you move them to a neighborhood near a park and what are the policy decisions to support that?"

The Office for People with Developmental Disabilities told Kearns the men were transferred last December from a Rochester institution that was closing as part of the statewide plan to move people from institutions to community-based programs.

Medical center food isn’t good enough for this obese sex offender

No matter what anyone thinks, if the state is going to incarcerate a person, they must recognize medical, physical and mental needs, and provide what is needed. The author calling him "crybaby" is clearly not professional and uncalled for; personal feelings must be set aside and deal with the needs of the person..

10-3-2014 New York:

Talk about a big crybaby. A 560-pound former pimp and convicted sex offender called The Post to whine about his taxpayer-funded stay at a Queens medical center — saying his bed was too small and the food is scanty and bland.

Kenneth Harvey, 58, says the Peninsula Center for Extended Care and Rehabilitation in Far Rockaway has made his five-month stay a “bad dream.”

“My body is literally bending the mattress like an accordion,” Harvey said in his private room, which costs Medicaid and Social Security up to $10,000 a month.

“A lot of times when they bring a meal up here, almost nothing is on the plate,” he said. “There might be lettuce and tomatoes and two pieces of bread. That’s what they call lunch.”

The supersized slacker, who was once 700 pounds, said he griped to the state Health Department and Queens Legal Aid to no avail.

Wheelchair (in)accessible: App maps obstacles for disabled

10-19-2013 National:

A filmmaker with multiple sclerosis hopes an app he developed will help fellow wheelchair users make cities like New York more accessible.

For most people, meeting friends for dinner at a new restaurant, jumping into a taxi or going out for a shopping trip shouldn't require too much advanced planning. Just show up and walk in.

But as Jason DaSilva discovered, these simple actions that he took for granted for the first 25 years of his life harbored hidden obstacles that made them nearly impossible to perform in a wheelchair.

Steps, narrow doorways, cracked sidewalks and impossibly long ramps were only some of the barriers he encountered as he tried to navigate New York City, where he lives, from a chair. Most of the subway system is out of reach, since not all stations have elevators. And not all taxis are equipped to load wheelchairs either.

Frustrated by his inability to move around as freely as he liked, DaSilva developed AXS Map — a crowdsourcing platform that allows people around the world to rate businesses for accessibility and, most important, to share that information.

Because while the Americans With Disabilities Act, enacted by Congress in 1990, mandated that buildings and other facilities become more accessible to those with disabilities, DaSilva found huge variability in how well the law was executed.

Beyond that, many buildings constructed before 1990 are exempt from the regulations. AXS Map isn't intended to rate the extent to which a structure is ADA-compliant; it simply serves as a tool for people with mobility issues to find out which businesses in their community are actually accessible, and to what degree.

Launched in 2012 as a website and mobile Web app, AXS Map is powered by Google Maps. Both of the current iterations allow the user to rate several features of local businesses for accessibility, which are tallied into an overall star rating.

Much like Yelp and other crowdsourcing platforms, the more data that users contribute, the more useful the app will become. Also like Yelp, with more ratings, the most positive or negative reviews are canceled out so users end up with a solid core of realistic reviews.

"I think it's critically important that people like Jason are getting involved and creating change in their own right. It is the only way that this effort will be successful," says Mark Perriello, president and CEO of the American Association of People With Disabilities.

"You see a lot of innovation by people with disabilities ... but the number of people who are participating and changing the future, changing their own future by changing society, is far too few."

IPad Opens World to a Disabled Boy

Related Topic: Are there ways such technology can assist disabled adults?

11-5-2010 New York:

OWEN CAIN depends on a respirator and struggles to make even the slightest movements — he has had a debilitating motor-neuron disease since infancy.

Owen, 7, does not have the strength to maneuver a computer mouse, but when a nurse propped her boyfriend’s iPad within reach in June, he did something his mother had never seen before.

He aimed his left pointer finger at an icon on the screen, touched it — just barely — and opened the application Gravitarium, which plays music as users create landscapes of stars on the screen. Over the years, Owen’s parents had tried several computerized communications contraptions to give him an escape from his disability, but the iPad was the first that worked on the first try.

“We have spent all this time keeping him alive, and now we owe him more than that,” said his mother, Ellen Goldstein, a vice president at the Times Square Alliance business association. “I see his ability to communicate and to learn as a big part of that challenge — not all of it, but a big part of it. And so, that’s my responsibility.” ..See NYT for remainder of article: by EMILY B. HAGER

NY- Hospitals forced into holding pattern

7-2-2008 New York:

Keith Shortsleeves knew he was going to have to stay in Glens Falls Hospital for at least a few weeks when he checked in on Jan. 20 for diabetes-related problems.

Circulation problems required partial amputation of his left leg.

But within a few weeks, Shortsleeves had recovered to the point he was ready to be discharged.

"I thought I'd just be going home," he said.

Nearly five months later, Shortsleeves is still in the hospital, despite the fact he is no longer in need of treatment there.

The hospital's staff won't let him go because he doesn't have a home that meets his needs for post-hospital care, he said during an interview in his room last week.

He is a Level 3 sex offender who can't go back to his former apartment in Fort Edward because of handicapped accessibility issues, but can't find an accessible apartment anywhere else because of laws that dictate where sex offenders can live.