A decade after his conviction for sexually assaulting a young girl multiple times, an Oahu man volunteered to help a boy’s football team at a state-run high school even though he was listed on the state’s registry of sex offenders.
The man assisted for nearly two seasons until the principal learned of his criminal record and dismissed him in 2011.
Another man, convicted in 2000 of possessing child pornography, volunteered as often as three times a week earlier this year to help an Oahu church feed homeless residents, including children, even though he also was on the sex offender registry.
The man said he did not disclose his conviction to the church pastor before he began helping because he saw no reason to, noting that he never interacted with the children.
Despite their convictions for youth-targeted crimes, neither man violated the law by performing volunteer work around minors. They had completed their sentences and were not prohibited from doing such work.
But the fact that they were volunteers underscores what child-safety advocates say is a gap in Hawaii’s system for keeping track of registered sex offenders.
Unlike a handful of states, Hawaii does not prohibit offenders — even those whose crimes involved children — from doing volunteer work that includes substantial contact with kids.
Such offenders aren’t even required to disclose their criminal past to the youth organizations — or any organization — that they work or volunteer for.
"That is completely unacceptable," said Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law, a New York-based nonprofit that is lobbying for a federal law that would prohibit sex offenders, whether as volunteers or employees, from having direct, substantial contact with minors. "Sexual predators will do anything they can to access potential victims."
The issue of registered sex offenders doing volunteer work for youth-focused programs drew headlines this summer when a Wahiawa man convicted of molesting boys he coached on a soccer team became involved in a league again.
After completing a five-year sentence in October 2011 for sexually assaulting six boys, Frederick Rames, 71, volunteered for the Wahiawa Soccer Club, which earlier this year held indoor matches involving about 50 elementary school children.
Rames told the Star-Advertiser in July that he was only helping run the league and wasn’t coaching or involved with players. He also told the newspaper he doesn’t disclose his criminal record unless asked.
The gap involving volunteerism and Hawaii’s registered sex offenders exists even though they are mandated to provide the state with extensive information about where they live, where they work, what vehicles they drive, what tattoos, if any, they have and other identifying information.
Most — but not all — of that information is placed on a public registry online to help residents keep tabs on offenders in their communities.
One glaring exception: Although registered offenders are required to tell the state where they work or volunteer, the state is not allowed to share that information with the public. (See related article.)
Unlike the registration requirements in at least 26 other states, Hawaii’s requirements do not include general restrictions on where sex offenders can live or work, according to a survey of the 50 states conducted in 2010 by the National Institute of Corrections and Washington College of Law.
Many of those 26 states specifically prohibit sex offenders whose crimes involved minors from physically being at schools and other places where children tend to congregate. At least seven states ban such offenders from volunteering for jobs or organizations that serve youth, according to the survey data.
Hawaii does have administrative rules that can prevent sex offenders and others convicted of certain crimes from being employed as teachers or in other positions at public schools and licensed child care facilities.
But those rules generally don’t apply to volunteers.
Sex offenders whose victims were minors and who still are on parole also are restricted from going to places, such as beaches, theaters or shopping malls, where children tend to congregate.
Some youth-focused organizations, such as AYSO, Pop Warner football and the Boy Scouts, have policies that call for criminal background checks on prospective coaches or other adult volunteer leaders.
Yet many organizations do no such screening.
The state Department of Education, for instance, doesn’t require background checks of volunteers who work directly with kids, though a spokeswoman said the agency is exploring whether to adopt such a policy. It currently runs checks on all employees, prospective employees and teacher trainees.
If an expanded policy had been in place in 2010, the agency presumably would have flagged the criminal record of Carl Liana, who volunteered to assist Farrington High School’s quarterbacks coach that year.
Liana, a star quarterback for Farrington in the late 1980s and early ’90s, was convicted in 2000 of six counts of sexual assault of a girl when she was 10 and younger. He spent nearly nine years in prison, was paroled, then was discharged from parole in December 2009, completing his sentence, according to court records.
At the time Liana volunteered in July 2010, his name was on the public registry. But Farrington’s principal at the time was not aware of Liana’s criminal record, according to the school.
Liana told the Star-Advertiser that he informed the school’s athletic director and head football coach about his criminal past, and they agreed that he would never be unsupervised around the players. He said all the team’s coaches, including three law enforcement officers, were aware of his past, but that news wasn’t shared with players’ parents.
Al Carganilla, who became Farrington’s principal several months after Liana volunteered in 2010, said he only learned of Liana’s record in October 2011 via an anonymous tip and immediately relieved him of all team duties.
Carganilla told the Star-Advertiser that he was unaware of any complaints about Liana’s conduct at the school.
Though Carganilla said he always checks the backgrounds of his volunteers, it wasn’t clear why his predecessor apparently didn’t do so.
In the church-related case, Everett Garcelon, 63, said in a September phone interview that his volunteer work was arranged through the Shelter of Wisdom homeless facility where he had been living since January.
Garcelon said he did not disclose his 2000 conviction to the church pastor because he believed that wasn’t necessary, given that he never talked to the kids and only dealt with adults, handing them food.
Asked whether the pastor was entitled to know about his child pornography conviction, Garcelon told the Star-Advertiser he would have no qualms disclosing that.
Neither Garcelon nor a Shelter of Wisdom official would identify the church.
Carolina Jesus, who oversees the shelter, downplayed Garcelon’s criminal record. "He’s completely harmless — a man of moral integrity," she said in a September interview.
Garcelon, a former music promoter, told the Star-Advertiser that he was convicted in Maine in 2000 for having an art photography book featuring naked minors posing individually in various settings. He said he purchased the book in San Francisco in the 1980s and that it was among numerous art publications he collected.
He was sentenced to five years’ probation for one count of possessing child pornography, a felony.
A spokesman for Maine’s U.S. attorney’s office, which prosecuted Garcelon, said the office was not able to provide information from its files because records from cases involving no incarceration were destroyed after 10 years.
But the office provided a link to a Bangor Daily News story that quoted court documents saying Garcelon, during a routine search at the Canadian-U.S. border, was discovered with photographs and videotapes "depicting minors in sexually explicit conduct."
Ahearn, whose New York-based organization runs a national tips hotline for sex offender violations, said her office received a tip about Garcelon’s volunteer work and subsequently alerted the Honolulu Police Department and the Department of Human Services’ Child Protective Services.
Neither agency was able to do anything because no crime or abuse was alleged, Ahearn said.
"There are just so many things wrong with this," she said. "It’s pretty disturbing to think that the law in Hawaii does nothing to protect our most vulnerable population."
In doing research to push for a federal law, Ahearn said her office found dozens of examples nationally of sex offenders in paid or volunteer positions having direct contact with minors. Many later were found to have molested children they worked with, she said.
But those who treat sex offenders and some who have studied registry-related issues caution against using a broad brush to paint all offenders as inherently dangerous, particularly those whose crimes were less serious and first offenses.
"We need to think carefully about who really is at risk of re-offending," said Carol Plummer, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii’s Myron B. Thompson School of Social Work.
Some also are leery of imposing restrictions that would infringe on the civil liberties of offenders who served their sentences and have had no more troubles with the law.
A blanket ban on sex offenders working around kids might be popular, but it wouldn’t address the fundamental question of whether the offender is a danger to children, according to Kenneth Lanning, a retired FBI agent and author of a widely used manual about investigating child sex abuse cases. Making that assessment requires evaluating the offender, the offense and other factors, Lanning added.
"To answer that question, you have to know the details," he said. "But nobody wants to know the details. They just say registered sex offenders should not be allowed to work around children."
Lawmakers had mixed views on whether Hawaii needs to address the volunteerism gap.
State Rep. Karl Rhoads, vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said he would support legislation requiring background checks of those who work around children.
"I don’t see why that shouldn’t apply to volunteers," Rhoads said. "I would rather err on the side of caution."
But state Rep. Gilbert Keith-Agaran, House Judiciary chairman, said he would be reluctant to try to change statutes, preferring instead to focus on better training for those who recruit volunteers for schools, churches and other groups.
"I don’t think we should look at changing the main structure of the law," Keith-Agaran said.
