Community meeting discusses citizen concerns

A group of two dozen Albert Lea residents raised concerns Wednesday about two high-risk predatory offenders moving in the city.

Questioning the locations where Joseph Harry Jensen and Cody Padraic Trott will be living, the residents asked whether there was anything that could be done to keep them from moving. They said the offenders in both cases will be living in close proximity to children and other vulnerable adults.

Jensen, 58, has been living in Albert Lea since he was released from prison in March and is slated to move from his present address on East Main Street to the vicinity of East Clark Street and North Broadway on Sept. 1.

Several in attendance at the meeting talked about how close he will be to children, with Youth for Christ’s The Rock, multiple churches and even St. Theodore Catholic School all within a few blocks of his residence.

Jensen has a history of sexual contact with female victims, ages 14 and 15. Contact included penetration, and he knew his victims.

Trott, 24, is slated to be released from prison on Tuesday

to move to the vicinity of Margaretha Avenue and Eleventh Street.

Trott has a juvenile history of sexual conduct and contact with both girls and boys ages 12 to 16. His conduct included engaging in sexually explicit conversations and indecent exposure, and his contact included penetration. Some of his victims were vulnerable due to developmental disability. He used physical force to gain compliance, and he was known to his victims.

Both Trott and Jensen are Level 3 offenders, which means they have the highest risk of reoffending, and both have a pattern of abusing people they knew, not strangers.

Sarah Hustad with the Department of Corrections said 90 percent of sexually abused children are abused by someone they know and trust.

Albert Lea Police Department detective Frank Kohl said Minnesota and Albert Lea do not have laws prohibiting predatory offenders from living within certain distances of schools, daycares or churches. But both of the men will be prohibited from having indirect or direct contact with minors.

He reassured the crowd that he and other police, along with Minnesota Department of Corrections agents, will watch the predatory offenders closely, and he cautioned the people that they should focus not only on the two Level 3 offenders discussed Wednesday.

He and Hustad encouraged people to develop safety plans with their children and grandchildren for what to do if they get into an inappropriate situation.

Kohl said the purpose of the community notification meeting Wednesday night was not to scare residents.

“We’ve had sex offenders living in our community, and we’ve had them for a long, long time,” he said.

It was only until Jan. 1, 1997, that communities had the right to know when certain offenders were being released to the community.

 

Number of registered predatory offenders

• Minnesota: 17,500

• Freeborn County: 74

• Waseca County: 38

• Steele County: 87

• Dodge County: 43

• Mower County: 113

• Faribault County: 49

— Numbers as of Aug. 19