Member Submission: Address Verification in Tallahassee
Hello. Just to let fellow people required to register know: my local city police showed up for my verification. I am no longer on Probation. I register through my county sheriff not the city. They asked me questions not asked during the regular registration (Do I have an internet service provider? Who is my closest living relative and what is their phone number? Do I have any minor children or grandchildren? What are their names and ages? How often do they come here? ).
I at first told the officer I wouldn’t answer them without asking my attorney. He said he’d be in his car for a bit if I wanted to contact the lawyer. i luckily got a hold of him and he told me to answer the questions cause he didn’t think they were anything that threatened me. The cop returned and I answered. He then told me that his lieutenant told him that if I didn’t answer they would contact SVU and would arrest me.
It’s so hard to know what to do. I feel confident in following my lawyer’s advice, but I would like to know if the cop is just threatening me without justification. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.
J
I Get visited Mothly by my police department, its used to be once a year,then 2 times a year, now the police Chief wants it done monthly, i get asked a variety of questions from different officers each time they show up, they look at drivers license, and have the white papers in hand….
As soon as they deviate from the white paper, i say i only answer to the Broward county Sheriffs dept, where i Register every 3 months, that usually puts a stop to the fishing expedition the police are trying to catch you and arrest you, especially when they ask if you went anywhere for a few days or go on a weeks vacation…..
My attorney said don’t give them any information other than whats on the white paper, there there for a home check, not an interrogation of your life, hoping to trip-u-up, and get info they can try to arrest you on…..
As the old saying goes, loose lips, sink ships….
Rick
That is why I moved out of the city and into a rural part of the county. I only get an address check twice a year that usually lasts less than 5 minutes with reminders to register and so on.
Although people should be able to live wherever they choose, I made the choice to move into a county and I never get random checks, always just the twice a year quickies.
Hi CJ, I agree, but theres really no where i can go, most of Broward citys have rules that ban you from moving there, palm beach has some open country but its mostly farm land, my wife loves our condo so ill just deal with the police harassment, called my lawyer and he said they could check you weekly if they wanted to, its there way of saying, please move out of our city, i have a couple of years to go before i can be removed from the sex offender registry, ill tough it out here and hopefully be able to live in harmony here…..
Thanks for your advice though !!!!
Rick
Rick
I will keep you and your family in my prayers. I will start as soon as I stop typing in 3—-2 ———-1. Prayer time.
Bad advise from your lawyer. NEVER talk to the police. Don’t even answer your door. These address verifications are BS and you do NOT have to comply with them. You only have to comply with your in person verification in the months required.
Him telling you that you must answer or be arrested was BS.
Stand your ground, refuse to talk to police, don’t answer questions, and RECORD them.
Disgusted
I saw a post on here earlier in the year about a person who refused to answer the door to verify their address. The cop put a note on the door saying “Either verify your address by being home or get arrested”. The person got violated for failure to verify their addresss.
From memory, I believe they got it tossed or court but they had a new arrest, lost money from lawyers and a hard lessen. Like I said it was a while back so all the details were fuzzy but do remember them saying if you are thinking of refusing an address check at the least, then you may be asking for problems. I do it twice a year, about 4 to 5 minutes of my time then left alone for 6 months.
And as a final note, you keep doing you. We all get advice on here but what works for one person may not work for someone else. States, counties and even the officers themselves all have different ways of doing things. Not all of them are legal and the system is seriously broken. I think all of us have at least one registry horror story and many of us have pages of them.
I get that, but there’s not one single State that has a law stating one must comply with these compliance checks.
I once lived in a county where the sheriff tried to tell me I needed to bring in a copy of a utility bill to prove where I lived. I told him proof of where I lived is on ,my license and that is all I would be providing.. He then stated that “a lot” of people provide a fake address on their license. Again, I told him that’s not my problem, and that the information on my license was correct and I will not be providing any other documents because Michigan law states we have to provide a valid license or state ID. Nothing else.
All these addition hoops they try to make us jump through are BS, and I will only do the bare minimum required of me. Nothing more, nothing less.
Disgusted
I am assuming you were not one of those selected to be removed from the registry?
under the new michigan law
I would ask your attorney to contact a civil rights attorney and see if there are grounds for a lawsuit. Most likely, though, unless they had actually arrested you, you wouldn’t be able to prove actual harm, but it’s worth asking.
No registrant should ever let the possibility of a lawsuit slip by!
Are you sure it was actual law enforcement?? Scammers and vigilantes like easy prey. Especially since the whole covid thing, I didn’t think anyone was having home visits anymore(at least here in Duval). If it was legitimate law enforcement, I’d suggest having a copy of all the state and county statutes on hand. Then if this should happen again, you’d be armed with all the pertinent information you’d need. I would also consider contacting the office where you register and question the legitimacy of this nonsense.
Andrea
In my area you either get once a year, twice a year or 4 times a year verification checks by Sheriffs office. If you are on probation or live in a city limits, you could get checks almost daily like I did to the point of harassment.
I once wrote a letter to a small police department to the chief to let him know that I could write in a complaint letter stating how some of his officers were harassing me. Instead, one particular officer stood out. He was beyond kind and we exchanged law enforcement stories. No we were not going to go have beers together but I could tell the officer was genuine and not judging me.
After the letter was hung in the police department, I guess all the other officers laughed at him for getting a “Love letter” from a sex offender. He was transferred to another assignment after that.
Having said that, He was already in line to be moved to the major crimes unit, and that is what he got. Maybe my letter helped in some way.
And I might say, the officers that came after him were a lot nicer to me after that letter. (Maybe they wanted a letter too ) LOL
Nope, that letter was inspired by God and never got that inspiration again for another officer.
This goes further into the “Trap” to get us all back in jail or prison. The Person in charge of the offender task force, probably told his officers to do whatever it takes to get these scumbags back behind bars.
And yes, law enforcement will for sure lie on you to cover their own behinds. I saw it all the time when I was a L.E.O. It made me sick to entrap people into answering questions you are not required to.
Another reason I moved out of the city. When I lived in City limits, I got Sheriff’s office, City police and FDLE showing up at my door a couple times a week. Their tactics worked and I moved. But the joke is on them because I only get talked to twice a year now, usually the same guy.
If it were me I would lodge an official complaint (and follow up on it). The officers might get nothing more than a grudging reprimand, but you may be pleasantly surprised to hear a formal apology.
But that’s just my advice (for what it is worth).