New York Housed Child Rapists Near Playground While Taxpayers Foot the Bill

NEW YORK CITY, NY - The Big Apple has quietly turned a former hotel into a taxpayer-funded shelter for those that are registered as sex offenders, and it is reportedly located less than 250 feet away from a kids playground.
Jul 11 / Law Enforcement Today
At least five level two and level three sex offenders, which are considered the worst of the worst, are living in a homeless shelter at 61 Chrystie Street, 243 feet from the Hester Street Playground in Chinatown, the New York Post reported. One individual that is allegedly staying at the shelter raped a seven-year-old.

"There's so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to begin," said resident Brian Chin, the father of a four-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl who he no longer allows on that playground.

"Finding out that the city has secretly been putting child predators into an all-expenses paid hotel overlooking the children's park, on the taxpayer dime, it verges on being almost unbelievable," he said. Chin is a neighborhood activist who researched the hotel and discovered the city was playing sex offenders there.

"The sheer amount of sex offenders concentrated in that one hotel, the fact that they're free to roam around, and that it's literally situated directly across from the kids park and the local high school, it's appalling," he said.
New York state law prohibits level two and level three sex offenders, who are considered at medium and high risk of reoffending, from living within 1,320 feet, or a quarter mile, of playgrounds, schools, parks and childcare facilities.
"We don't even know how many level one sex offenders are living there because they're not listed [in the state sex-offender registry]," Chin said of the lowest level sex predators.

The shelter was once a boutique hotel called Hotel MB and before that a Comfort Inn. It was reportedly converted into a homeless facility in the summer of 2021.

It is not clear when the city began moving in sex offenders or how many of them actually live at the site.
The shelter is run by a Bronx-based non-profit called the Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural Affairs Inc. (NAICA), which has pocketed nearly $1.3 billion in city contracts over the past decade, records show.
NAICA's Chrystie Street location was part of a four-year $160.5 million contract with DHS to provide 467 beds for single adults there and at two other locations in the Bronx and Queens, as reported by the city Comptroller's office.
The deal expired on June 30th, but DHS signed a one-year, $42.3 million extension. That new contract has yet to be registered with the Comptroller's office.

The sex offenders living there, according to the state's Sex Offender Registry, include: 63-year-old Darren Jackson, a level three offender convicted in 2010 for raping a seven-year-old girl multiple times — he was sentenced to three years in prison; 57-year-old Lemar Jackson, a level three offender convicted in 2008 for deviate sexual intercourse for using threats and physically overpowering 12-and nine-year-old girls — he was sentenced to two to four years in prison.
Also living there is 57-year-old Elvin Vega, a level three offender convicted in 1998 for using a blunt object to force a female of unknown age to have intercourse — he was sentenced to 18 months to three years in prison, and 63-year-old Legrand Jones, a level two sexually violent offender convicted of sexual abuse in 2003 for overpowering a 21-year-old woman and forcing her to have sex.

He was sentenced to two to four years.

Terrance Brown, 59, a level two offender convicted of forcible touching another person's intimate parts in 2009 and sentenced to six months is also listed as living at the shelter.

Some area activists became aware that the hotel was being used as a shelter for parolees back in 2021 and raised their concerns, but nothing changed, according to Jacky Wong, managing director of the greater Chinatown Civic Coalition.

"Both DHS and the hotel owner had previously assured us that this parolee shelter would close in June 2022," Wong said.

"But they lied. It's still operating. This shelter, along with other nearby facilities for single men, has directly and indirectly contributed to increased crime and safety concerns in and around Sara D. Roosevelt Park."

Sex offenders are not supposed to be housed in shelters in residential neighborhoods, said Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa. "This is part of the shelter problem," he said.

"It's become a cottage industry where there are contracts and then obviously, the people who get the contracts, subcontract out, all the ancillary services to friends and relatives and associates, but the one thing that they should be doing is vetting who it is that actually is in a shelter and they don't."

The city Department of Social Services released a statement saying that not everyone required to register in the sex offender database has residency restrictions.

"DSS provides shelter to anyone in need in accordance with New York City's right to shelter law while also ensuring compliance with all necessary local laws and regulations which includes being mindful of any residency restrictions and specific criteria laid out in state law," the statement said.

Many people who were in the park with their children on Wednesday, July 2nd, and were upset to learn of the shelter and who it is housing.

"I'm super (expletive) off, I'm talking to my husband right now on the phone and he's extremely mad as well," said a 29-year-old mom who takes her kids to the playground at least twice a week.

"They shouldn't be anywhere near the park."

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