NT: New sex offender living in motel where parolee had resided

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October 23, 2009

By Neale Gulley<br><a href="mailto:neale.gulley@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Neale</a> The Lockport Union-Sun %26 Journal Fri Oct 23, 2009, 10:58 PM EDT

NORTH TONAWANDA — Paroled sex offender James McKinney has been moved out of North Tonawanda to the satisfaction of city officials, but not as planned.

And while one problem has been solved, another sex offender has moved into the same motel where McKinney had resided.

On Monday, McKinney, 51, was sent back to Niagara County Jail for violating one of the roughly 80 strict terms of his release May 27.

Heather Groll, with the state’s parole division, said McKinney was arrested for not attending a program. But she said the office isn’t allowed to say specifically which program he did not attend.

McKinney’s release was conditional on the grounds that he receive a plethora of ongoing treatments, keep a daily log of his whereabouts and submit to physical testing.

Meanwhile, a new registered sex offender from Florida has moved into McKinney’s last residence, the B-cozy motel, 1200 Niagara Falls Blvd., according to a tip posted Friday on the citizen observer Web site.

Sex offender Todd W. Kiger, temporarily employed at the AES Somerset Plant in Barker, is staying at the motel, according to Niagara County Sheriff’s Investigator Leonard E. Guagliano.

Guagliano said the alert was immediately put up on the citizen observer Web site, but cannot be on the department’s public Web site because the suspect is not considered a New York state resident.

The motel has been under public scrutiny since McKinney was relocated there from the Midtown Inn in Niagara Falls after similar public outcry in that city. McKinney was assigned to the Falls motel following his May parole. The parole division in early August moved McKinney to the B-cozy.

But that sparked outrage in North Tonawanda, where city officials say he lived in breach of a city ordinance because the location was near a school and a daycare center.

His attorney, David Jay, suggested the outcome of court appearances surrounding the latest parole violation doesn’t necessarily solve the overall question of where his client will live.

But what’s more, he said he received hand-delivered paperwork from the state attorney general on Friday seeking to put McKinney in a secure institution indefinitely.

Jay said he’s more than frustrated with the state regarding his client’s rights under the parole arrangement, indicating the odds were so badly stacked against McKinney that it was only a matter of time before some infraction reopened the case to put him away.

That was the same argument state prosecutors unsuccessfully waged before Supreme Court Judge Richard Kloch at the time of his release.

“They wanted him to go from the very beginning,” Jay said.

But the infraction came just as the parole division was challenged with finding another place for him to live, outside the Lumber City. More than one potential residence has been suggested in recent weeks, but none were a fit because of McKinney’s offender status.

It has been determined McKinney has a mental abnormality making it likely he could re-offend.

He has already served a seven-year prison sentence since admitting in 2002 to having sex with four girls younger than 14. All but one instance occurred in North Tonawanda between 2000 and 2001. McKinney was convicted on multiple counts of sexual abuse, including rape and sodomy.

A court appearance has been scheduled before Judge Kloch on Nov. 12.

Reporter Britney Milazzo contributed to this report.

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