Tom talks about the National Sex Offenders Public Website NSOPS.GOV and checking out your area

Attorney Tom Olsen: Chris, I'm going to go a little bit off-topic here and just let the listeners know that I have been reading the newspaper since I was in third grade here in Orlando. Long, long, long time.

Attorney Chris Merrill: I know.

Tom: Just to remind the listeners too that Orlando was a small town back then, and I would come home from school and I'd read the newspaper and there were certain articles that were cut out. I didn't think anything about it, until many years later when I was an adult and I was talking to my mom one time and she goes, "Yes, Tom, there were scandals happening in people that you knew in our neighborhood, and those scandals, I would cut those articles out so you wouldn't see them."

Attys. Chris: I give your mom credit for one, okay, there was you are one of four kids. Let's just start with this. You are one of four children and you are the only one that was reading the Orlando Sentinel.

Tom: Yes.

Attys. Chris: Okay. Therefore, two, then your mom knew you were reading it. You were the only one of your siblings and she had the wherewithal to say, "Hey, that's great that my son is in third grade and reading the Orlando Sentinel, but I want to make sure that he's not seeing these scandals." She cut them out so you're reading the paper with those holes. I just think that's adorable.

Tom: I still read the newspaper this day for me to get up early and find the newspaper on my driveway and sit and read-

Attys. Chris: You'd love it.

Tom: -it with a cup of coffee. I do love it. I hope that they will continue to be willing to throw that newspaper on my driveway and someday understand.

Attys. Chris: For a long time.

Tom: Maybe they won't and I'll have to look at it on an iPad or something. In the meantime, I love reading the newspaper. This story was going somewhere, but we're going to have to take a break. When we come on the other side of the break, we must continue to talk about this. Hey, Chris, before the break, we were talking about how I've been reading the Orlando Sentinel newspaper since third grade. Continue to read it is one of the joys of my life is to wake up in the morning and have a cup of coffee and read the newspaper and I love it.

Back when I was a kid, it was Dear Abby, and people like us, like me at least, they would remember Dear Abby. I'm going way off script now, but one thing I always remember about Dear Abby was that she was one of the first people to say out loud and in public and in the newspaper that being gay is not a disease. Being gay used to be defined as a disease, as in cancer is a disease. She was the first one to step out and say, "No, it's not a disease, it occurs in the billions of people that are going to be some people that are gay."

Okay. Then she was taken over by her sister and Landers and now the daily advice column is Ask Amy and every once in a while I write, Ask Amy a question and I find it really a hoot when she puts my questions in the newspaper. I show all the family members my question that I wrote in and what her answer was and just fun stuff really.

Attys. Chris: Oh, yes. Absolutely.

Tom: Where I'm leading to with this is that, this morning there was an article in there and one of the lady wrote in, she said, "Tom, I just found out that somebody in my neighborhood is a sex offender. Should I be telling my neighbors this information?" Of course, hey, what's Ask Amy going to say? The bottom line was, she says, "Look, first confirm and if this is true, absolutely you should be telling your neighbors and Ask Amy. She told me, I didn't know this, but there you can Google National Registry of Sex Offenders.

Just Google that, it will take you to a government website. You put in your address and just you can put whatever periphery you want and I'd put into one mile. I think that's the default as to all the sex offenders in our neighborhood or within one mile as the crow flies, you might say, oh my God, was at a shocker to see how many of there were. Now, specifically, there is a condominium association within one mile, not nearby, but this is as a crow flies. It's within our one-mile border. This condo was full of registered sex offenders.

They must all be getting together and saying, "Okay, here's a place where you can live because there are certain places they can't live within school zones and so forth, or it was full of them." We're talking in a condo association. There must have been 30 of them lined up, neighbor, neighbor, all sex offenders.

Attys. Chris: I think too, for the listeners out there, you should tell them that website.

Tom: Maybe I'll Google it and give them the website. It is, if you Google, National Registry Sex Offenders Website, you're going to find it.

Attys. Chris: Okay. Say that again.

Tom: National Registry of Sex Offenders.

Attys. Chris: Website.

Tom: Website. You're going to find it.

Attys. Chris: Then you can put in your address and then it's going to give you within a radius any that may be known in your area, just so then, our listeners out there would know how to find this information themselves.

Tom: It gives you names, photographs-

Attys. Chris: And information.

Tom: -address what their sex offense was and-

Attys. Chris: Very important.

Tom: -very important. That led me to ask you, we know this condominium. We know it, we drive by it. It's a two-story and full of sex offenders. Why they're all congregating in this particular condominium complex? I'm not sure. Maybe it's a safe zone for them. It raised a question to me and that is this, is that if you own a condo in that association and you want to sell this condo, would you be required to disclose to a buyer that is full of sex offenders?

Attys. Chris: Well, I think it's a really great question and it's a question for one as the owner, what are you legally obligated to do and/or as the realtor, if you know that and we don't know. We would have to ask a realtor, certainly, what they say, because isn't it interesting? Everything that we know about real estate and that, I don't know, we don't know that answer.

Tom: We know that in the state of Florida, as far as selling real estate, it used to be a buyer beware state, didn't have to disclose anything. We have come 180 degrees to where you must now disclose anything and everything that material affects the value of this piece of property.

Attys. Chris: Would that be considered?

Tom: I'm thinking it does, okay? If you've got a condo in there that's worth $200,000 and you try and sell it for $200,000 and you disclose your buyer, by the way, this complex is full of sex offenders. I don't think it's worth $200,000 anymore.

Attys. Chris: Right. I agree.

Tom: Maybe ignorance is bliss in this situation. My initial reaction is that if you know it, then you're obligated to disclose it. What it might also be interesting for people to know is that, okay, if you're buying a piece of property, maybe you go check the address of the property that you're buying and seeing what's going on in your neighborhood.

Attys. Chris: Absolutely.

Tom: We have a very quiet, quaint neighborhood that's defined by boundaries of major roads and so forth. It's considered its own little neighborhood in itself and within our own little neighborhoods itself, sure enough, there was one. Then, I'm not overly concerned, but I don't think it affects the value of our piece of property, but still just let that, man, they're out there.

Attys. Chris: Absolutely. It occurred to me as you were saying this as well, what responsibility, if any, is there two HOAs or condo associations? Because Florida, California has the most HOAs, Florida, number two. We have so many HOAs in Florida, house, and condo. Is there any responsibility on there as well?

Tom: I think when you talk about a neighborhood of traditional homes that they have an HOA to sell your home to somebody, I don't think it requires any kind of approval from this neighborhood full of traditional homes that has an HOA. If you're buying a condo in a building that has an HOA, I do believe that you got to get permission and approval of the buyer that's coming in. The question is on those HOAs and the condo buildings, are they doing background checks looking for the same thing?

Attys. Chris: Correct.

Tom: That would be interesting to know. By the way, when you go to the website, and I know this is all lurid and maybe off topic a little bit, but the one that happens to be living in our neighborhood, it literally says on there, convicted of soliciting sex with a minor child over the computer. It gives you that detail about it. If we had young kids, I would be concerned.

Attys. Chris: Well, I think very important information for the public to have.

Tom: Again, if you just out of your idle curiosity, you want to know what's going on in your neighborhood. If you just Google National Registry of Sex Offenders Website, it is a government website because I think most people know, but they probably forget that if you're a convicted sex offender, you are required to register with this registry.

Attys. Chris: It's part of their.

Tom: Yes, exactly. You can go on and you can check it out yourself and see what's going on. Hopefully, not too close to your house. All right.

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