Three convicted sex offenders have sued the city of Englewood in federal court claiming that its zoning ordinances effectively banish them from living in the city.
Sex offenders Brian Brockhausen, Allen Toner and Larry Cook are the plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed on their behalf on Thursday by Boulder attorney Alison Ruttenberg.
The three plaintiffs have been told that they will soon receive letters notifying them that they have 30 days to “clear out of the city of Englewood or be arrested,” because they will not be allowed to register as sex offenders in the city, the lawsuit says.
City Manager Eric Keck declined to comment because the issue is under litigation.
They are asking the federal court to declare the Englewood Sex Offender Residency Restriction, which was created in 2006, violates federal and state constitutions as a “new, after-the-fact” punishment. They are also asking to be compensated for attorney’s fees and costs.
Englewood enacted its residency restrictions “based on public hysteria against sex offenders,” the lawsuit says. The city limits how close sex offenders can live to schools, day-care centers and other locations where children congregate, such as public pools.
“The City Council believed that sex offenders had a 100 percent recidivism rate, that sex offenders were poor derelicts who would be homeless and prey on the children of Englewood and that all sex offenders are violent predators who place children at risk,” the lawsuit says.
The recidivism rate for sex offenders who are successful in treatment is less than 1 percent, the lawsuit says. Meanwhile, the recidivism rate for other felonies is 40 percent, the document says.
“Englewood has singled out sex offenders for banishment, and allows convicted and paroled murderers, people convicted of child abuse and neglect, arsonists, drug dealers, burglars, robbers, extortionists, habitual criminals and other violent felons to reside wherever they want to…,” the lawsuit says.
Brockhausen has lived in Englewood since 1988 with his family, the lawsuit says. He was convicted of sexually assaulting three teenage boys, it says. He was paroled from prison in 2014 and has completed three courses of sex offender treatment. He cares for his elderly parents and a disabled brother, the lawsuit says.
Toner was also paroled in 2014. He was sentenced to 10 years to life in a 2004 sexual assault. The lawsuit says he has been doing well on treatment.
Cook, 66, was convicted in 2012 of sexual exploitation of a child when pornography was found on his computer. He has lived in his home since 1990.
City ordinances restrict sex offenders from living in 99 percent of parcels in the city. They are allowed in only 55 parcels out of 11,314, the lawsuit says.
“It is apparent that there is no place in Englewood where a registered sex offender can live without being continually at risk of being ejected. Even if a sex offender complies with residential restrictions, he has no control over whether a third party may open a daycare center, recreation center or swimming pools,” the lawsuit says.
