Northpinellas: List keeps sex offender's past in present

The facts on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Web site spoke for themselves. Check it and you would find Gallagher's mug shot and boilerplate jargon that said he had sex with two girls.

Gallagher's neighbors used the Web site to make sure their fears were grounded in fact. Rumors were spreading. Questions were being asked. Is there a dangerous felon among us?

"It's got us all spooked, and I've never been spooked," said Toni Mattz, 66. "I just think somebody like that should not be here where so many people are so vulnerable."

The neighbors called a meeting. They called condo management. They even called a reporter.

They didn't call Gallagher.

But he wasn't surprised.

"People see that and they don't ask questions," Gallagher said of the Web site. "They just act."

Gallagher says his neighbors never saw this: He's a 24-year-old electrician who moved to Clearwater last fall to spend time with his dying grandmother. He's a man who admits that as a teenager, he was out of control. But he says he's paid for his crimes and now wants to put his past behind him.

"He has a good heart," said his former boss, Bill Cowherd.

So there it is: two portraits, one man.

* * *

Gallagher is one of 884 Pinellas County residents whose names, pictures, addresses and sex crime histories are posted on the FDLE's Web site. At any hour, anyone could see two "lewd, lascivious child U/16" convictions next to his name.

But a review by the St. Petersburg Times showed that the Web site was wrong. State prosecutors dropped one charge. And in the second, Gallagher pleaded guilty to attempting a lewd act, not committing one.

It was August 1993 in Edgewater.

She was 16. He was 17.

She let him in her window. They had sex.

She said it was rape. He said it was consensual.

None of this makes Gallagher a model citizen. He was imprisoned for car theft, and a judge gave him five years of probation for the attempted lewd act.

On Friday, the deputy circuit administrator for the state Department of Corrections said his staffers reviewed Gallagher's case after being contacted by the Times. They confirmed that Gallagher's convictions were listed incorrectly.

"We're going to get that corrected on the FDLE Web site," Peter Hughes said. "We'll call them and have them work on it."

By Friday evening, Gallagher's record had been set straight on the site.

Aside from the errors, civil rights advocates say Gallagher's case raises a larger question: should felons with low-level convictions be on the list at all?

"People see the postings and they don't know the facts of each case," said Denis de Vlaming, a well-known Pinellas County defense lawyer.

A high school senior found "in the back of Dad's Chevy" with his 15-year-old girlfriend "gets the same exposure on the Internet as the pervert hanging around the bus stops with the 6-year-olds," de Vlaming said.

FDLE doesn't choose whom to include, said FDLE spokeswoman Jennifer McCord. Federal rules say the state must list offenses such as Gallagher's or forfeit federal law enforcement money.

Most importantly, McCord said, the public wants the information.

"Don't you think you have a right to know who is living in your neighborhood? Or your elderly mother's neighborhood?" she said. "The bottom line is that public safety is our priority here."

But just being listed can destroy a life. Gallagher said one of his bosses fired him after discovering his past. In 1999, the home of an Apollo Beach man was set on fire twice after neighbors learned he was listed as a sexual predator.

"It effectively draws a big target around the person whose name and likeness is on that computer," de Vlaming said.

When Gallagher pleaded guilty in 1993, there was no sex offender list. When he was freed from prison in 1997, there was.

"If I had known anything about (being on the list) now, I wouldn't have pleaded guilty," Gallagher said.

Defense lawyers say the state basically punished Gallagher twice.

"It's just a trend," said Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger. "More and more, you can never pay your debt to society."

Courts have rejected that argument. Sex offender registries aren't punishment, but merely a list of public records, judges have ruled.

For Gallagher, that doesn't make starting over again any easier.

Gallagher said part of his problems as a teen stemmed from his parents' divorce when he was 12. Before that, his father was "beyond strict." Afterward, he said, they had little contact.

He wouldn't discuss those problems further. They don't excuse his later crimes, he said.

"I'm not looking for anybody to feel sorry for me," he said. "I did what I did and I'm trying to rebuild my life. . . . I can't go back and change it. All I can do is my best now."

The list haunts him. He attended two semesters of community college after serving his time, he said. He wants to go back but doesn't want to borrow money for school because he's not sure a sex offender could get a good enough job to repay the loans.

De Vlaming said Gallagher should ask a judge to remove him from the list. Gallagher said he has no money and no hope anything would change.

"This way, it makes life almost unlivable for people," Gallagher said. "I did four years. Isn't that enough?"

But 76-year-old Nicholas Zullo, one of Gallagher's neighbors at the Top of the World retirement community in Clearwater, wasn't reassured when he discovered Gallagher's sex crime convictions were years old.

"If he's a sex offender, he's a sex offender," Zullo said. "I don't think he'll ever get over that. I haven't had a drink in 20 years, but I'm still an alcoholic."

"It's a disease," said Estelle Seltenreich, who is 74. "People like that may never do it again. But then, you never know."

Edgewater resident Joe McAllister, who hired Gallagher to work sales at his moving company, sympathizes with the fears of Gallagher's neighbors. He remembers how shocked he was when he walked into his children's school and saw Gallagher's mug shot on the wall.

"I immediately go, "Oh my God,' " McAllister said. "I knew he had a history, but I didn't know what it was."

McAllister confronted Gallagher. The two talked it over, and McAllister kept Gallagher on the job. He "made a lot of mistakes" when he was younger, but that didn't show at work, McAllister said. Gallagher was "real good with people" and worked hard.

"It's a valid concern, but I have kids, and I would have trusted him alone with my kids," McAllister said. "They never were, because the scenario never popped up. But I wouldn't feel uncomfortable with him living in my neighborhood."

Gallagher said his neighbors' worries soon will be over. His grandmother died Jan. 10, so he's leaving Top of the World, where he was living in his grandmother's condo.

"I'm moving in less than a month," he said. "If I can find another place, it'll be before that time."

When he does, the law says Gallagher must tell police where he's going. His new address will be posted on the Internet.

And then Gallagher's neighbors can find out about his past once again.

- Times researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.

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