Timothy Szad, Dangerous Sex Offender, Prompts Vermont Town To Issue Dire Warning

Timothy Szad, Dangerous Sex Offender, Prompts Vermont Town To Issue Dire Warning

Correction officials said Thursday they have a new plan for a high-risk sex offender due to be released from prison: He's moving out of state.

The Department of Corrections is notifying police in the place where the sex offender, Timothy Szad, is going but isn't releasing the information publicly, said Dale Crook, the department's director of field supervision.

Officials said last week Szad, 53, would be living with his elderly parents in Springfield, a town of about 9,000 residents, but that plan fell apart after public outcry.

The case highlights a tough dilemma in releasing sex offenders: Correction officials and police sometimes see a requirement to notify the public about the possible danger, but broad notification can generate such opposition that living arrangements can fall apart.

A homeless sex offender is more dangerous than one with a stable place to live, said state Rep. Alice Emmons, chairwoman of the Vermont House committee that oversees correction.

Szad's case has focused attention not only on the state's public-notification practices for sex offenders but on the value and constitutionality of civil commitment laws, which about 20 states use to keep some offenders locked up in mental health facilities after their prison terms.

Timothy Szad, Dangerous Sex Offender, Prompts Vermont Town To Issue Dire Warning

Vermont debated such a law eight years ago and decided against it, said Emmons, who counted herself among the opponents.

"You're holding someone who has not committed a (new) crime," she said. "Do we as a society in Vermont want to do that?"

The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Vermont chapter, Allen Gilbert, said the public needs to accept that sex offenders like Szad get out of prison when they complete their sentences.