State Senate hopeful: Toughen penalties for sex offenders

GOP's Lanza pushes for increased jail time and civil confinement

Sunday, September 24, 2006

By ROB HART

ADVANCE ALBANY BUREAU

City Councilman Andrew Lanza joined concerned residents yesterday to pledge that if he gets elected to the state Senate in November, he'll use his position to bring the hammer down on sex offenders.

"One of our primary concerns as a community is the protection of our children," the South Shore Republican said outside Sacred Heart School in West Brighton, joined by nine locals and Anthony Xanthakis, the GOP candidate to replace retiring Assemblyman Matthew Mirones.

Lanza, angling to succeed retiring state Sen. John Marchi, advocated increasing jail time for sex offenders and fighting for civil confinement -- placing sex criminals in mental institutions after prison.

But his focus was Megan's Law, which allows the public access to a registry of convicted sex offenders in their neighborhoods. While residents currently have to seek out the information, Lanza said they should be immediately notified.

"Notification is not mandatory," he said. "If it's not mandatory, [the law] may as well not exist."

Added Xanthakis: "The burden should not be on the good citizens of Staten Island to go find this information."

He pointed to the recent furor over a West Brighton home suspected to have been illegally converted into apartments, and the lack of notification for the neighborhood when a sex offender who served prison time for raping a 27-year-old woman and an 8-year-old girl moved in.

Lanza said he would support legislation in the GOP-ruled Senate to mandate notification and introduce legislation to stiffen penalties when sex offenders don't report their whereabouts.

"Councilman Lanza was the first one to step up and say, 'I'm going to publicly support you,'" said Eric Richardson of Livingston, who is circulating a petition demanding mandatory notification. "This isn't a Republican or Democratic issue."

Staten Island has 91 Level 1 sex offenders, 81 at Level 2 and 48 at Level 3, according to the state Division of Criminal Justice Services' Web site.

Robert Helbock, a top aide to Marchi (R-Staten Island), is the Conservative candidate facing Lanza, and attorney Matthew Titone, son of the late Judge Vito Titone, is the Democrat.

Xanthakis faces Democratic attorney Janele Hyer-Spencer in the race to fill in for Mirones (R-East Shore/Brooklyn).

Rob Hart covers state government for the Advance. He may be reached at rhart@siadvance.com.

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