Sentencing for notorious sex offender delayed due to bumbling prison staff
Sentencing for notorious sex offender delayed due to bumbling prison staff
Reports state that NYSDOCCS failed to transport sex pest Paul Goodrell to court, delaying justice for his many underage victims.
Sentencing for a level 3 registered sex offender has been delayed, after a so-called “miscommunication” with the NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS).
Sentencing for 55-year-old criminal sex pest Paul Goodrell was supposed to be handed down in an Ontario County court on Wednesday for exposing himself to children numerous times in 2023. As a judge readied themselves for the appearance, they learned Goodrell never showed up.
According to reports, Goodrell was able to skirt the hearing because of a “miscommunication” with NYSDOCCS, the agency currently in charge of physically transporting the abuser to court. Goodrell pled guilty to a string of flashing incidents in Rochester-area grocery stores in 2023, all targeting prepubescent minors.
Ontario County DA Jim Ritts says he was notified in March that Goodrell had been transferred to state custody due to a previous conviction which also included child sex offenses, but NYSDOCCS failed to “follow up” for his sentencing on Wednesday.
“It’s a frustration. This is a situation where it’s a case that the public is keenly aware of,” said Ritts to Rochester First. “We’ve got a serial offender who was to be held to task today, and the ability to do that has been taken away, and has now been adjourned for two more weeks. So, it’s frustrating.”
Goodrell has been described as a repeat sexual offender and has been incarcerated in New York State many times over the past 35 years. In December of 2023, Goodrell would be arrested numerous times for exposing himself to young children in Tops and Walmart grocery stores, including one incident where he fondled himself in front of a 7-year-old boy and another where he stalked a family with young girls at a Walmart in Victor.
Authorities in those cases assert that Goodreall damaged his GPS ankle monitor in order to carry out the crimes. In 2017, Goodrell was arrested for exposing himself to two 11-year-old kids at a Michael’s store. He’s been a registered sex offender since 2010 after he flashed three teens inside a girl’s locker room in Auburn.
“I think in some instances when they realize they’re only going to be released, it tends to embolden their behavior. Then, you end up with a situation like we have here,” said Lt. Lee Martin with the Ontario County Sheriff’s Office. “I think there is a danger to the public because they’re released to offend. They’re released to revictimize and they know that. The way the court system presently works, they know there’s very little going to be done to stop them from doing this.”
For the crimes he committed in 2023, Goodrell pled guilty to burglary as a sexually motivated felony, three counts of public lewdness, and four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. A judge ruled that he is to serve all the sentences concurrently and faces 7 years in prison with 15 years of “post-release supervision.”
Thanks to the NYSDOCCS, Goodrell’s next sentencing date is scheduled for April 24th.
It would not be the first time NYSDOCCS has dropped the ball regarding its civil service duties. In 2021, officers in an Ulster County prison were implicated in an outrageous sexual abuse claim, after a sergeant allegedly used a baton to “sodomize” an inmate in a sequestered area of the jail. Due to fears of witness reprisal, however, the officers went unpunished.
In 2015, a pair of inmates escaped Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. The two inmates—both of whom were convicted killers—dug themselves through the old prison’s crumbling infrastructure, using tools given to them by an NYSDOCCS civilian staff worker who had been seduced. An investigation into the escape would reveal a culture of corruption between on-duty guards and inmates, which may have brewed complacency and cost taxpayers $1 million a day during the manhunt.