Probation boss resigns following county investigation into sex offender tracking

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Monroe County Executive Adam Bello has accepted the resignation of the Chief Probation Director and says big changes are coming to the County’s Probation Department. That’s following an investigation into how a level 2 sex offender on probation was allowed to work at a store across the street from an School 25 in Rochester. The man is charged with raping a girl inside at that store.

The arrest happened in March, within days Bello asked two outside agencies to investigate the situation and the department as a whole. Those reports have now concluded and show major shortfalls when it comes to how the department confirms the work addresses of the sex offenders it is tasked with monitoring.

“There is no excuse for what happened,” Bello said at a briefing on Thursday, “both reports confirmed that greater supervision of Mr. Alghaithy was warranted and necessary and did not occur and there is no excuse.”

Shadad Alghaithy wasn’t supposed to be within 1,000 feet of a school as a level 2 sex offender on probation. The reports indicate that Monroe County Probation officers did know that he was working at that location and had made a site visit.

Rich Tantalo (Director, Monroe County Public Safety) – He had moved from one, if you will, employment opportunity to another and (they were) looking to verify that information so that site was visited and the individual was contacted there.

Jennifer Lewke (News10NBC) – Meaning, the probation officer didn’t notice the school next-door or didn’t know there was a rule about it?

Rich Tantalo – Due to the dual-supervision that existed and that’s where the training recommendation the cross-training recommendation comes in.

Meaning, Alghaithy was on probation for a few different crimes and the officer who made the visit didn’t specialize in the rules for sex offenders. That, is just one of many issues these reports uncovered when it comes to the workplaces of sex offenders. “You may have a W-2, a pay stub, something like that that was collected from that sex offender to show where they worked but there’s no standard or law in place as to then how often that’s verified or how that’s verified,” explains Bello.

That’s why County Executive Bello says he signed an executive order which now requires probation officers to conduct home and work visits every 90 days for all sex offenders currently under supervision. He’s also mandating that officers are cross-trained in different stipulations for all types of probationers.

The investigators also learned that the mapping software the department uses has not been updated since 2018 which means it could be missing newer schools and daycare centers; Bello says that will be updated immediately.

Jennifer Lewke – Have all the other sex offenders’ work addresses been checked by now and they are up-to-date and following all the rules that are out there?

Rich Tantalo – We are continuing to work through that because in many instances, individuals change employment, we sometimes find that out when we go to the previous employment location and then have to backtrack where their new employment location is…I will say that after our briefing in March we received several calls to our office concerning the thousand foot rule and we were able to verify that those probationers under supervision with Monroe County probation were in compliance.

The full reports can be viewed:
sou-report.pdf (monroecounty.gov)
markert-report.pdf (monroecounty.gov)