David McColl,Level 2 Sex Offender, Wappingers Falls, NY.
Sex offender who moved from Kent settles in Dutchess By Terence Corcoran The Journal News • November 18, 2008 KENT - A registered sex offender who moved to town, only to move out after some parents expressed concern, has landed in Dutchess County. David McColl, 46, has relocated to an address at 82 Losee Road, Wappingers Falls, according to the state's sex-offender registry. McColl was convicted in New Jersey in April 2005 of a felony sex offense for attempting to have sexual contact with three girls, two 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old. His move last month to Nemarest Club Road in Kent prompted several parents to approach authorities about enacting a sex-offender law that Putnam County lawmakers passed last year but never enacted due to concerns over its legality. McColl moved out of Kent on Nov. 2. He is considered a sexual predator and, as such, must check in with authorities at least once every 90 days. Among the restrictions the law places on registered sex offender are that they cannot live within 1,000 feet of places where children congregate. This includes child-care facilities, parks, playgrounds, youth centers, theaters and recreational facilities. The law also forbids them from living in mobile-home parks, condominiums, apartment complexes or housing developments with 10 or more single-family homes on less than one-third of an acre. Several parents living near Nemarest Club, a small neighborhood of summer residences off Peekskill Hollow Road that were converted to year-round homes, asked authorities to check whether McColl's presence there violated the new law. Authorities said the small cottage he rented appeared to comply with the law. But members of the Putnam Legislature's Protective Services Committee, nonetheless, took a second look at the law last week, agreeing to amend it and send it to the full Legislature for a vote. The law had differentiated between levels of sex offenders. It allowed Level 1 offenders who were living within the 1,000-foot perimeter prior to the law's enactment to remain there. Level 1 is considered the least likely to reoffend. McColl is classified as a Level 2 offender. But committee members decided to strip that grandfather clause from the law, over the objections of the County Law Department, which worried that challenges to the law could be costly to taxpayers. Read more about this story tomorrow in The Journal News and on LoHud.com http://www.lohud.com/article/20081118/NEWS04/811180400/1020