As I pointed out on my Main Page (above), the “Summary
of State and Territorial Registration Laws Concerning Visiting and Temporary
Residence by Adults” chart available on the Association
for Constitutional Sex Offender Laws (ACSOL) website hasn’t been updated since
2018. Furthermore, when it comes to New
York State that chart relies on the so-called “Rolfe Survey” which dates from
2017.
Therefore, if you refer to the New York entry on the ACSOL
chart which says, “The Rolfe Survey reports that NY does not require visitors to
register,” be advised – that information is quite stale by now.
I called the New York State SOR
office in June 2020 (updated in August 2023) and here’s what they told me: visitors
get 10 consecutive days or 14 per month before being required to register. Translation:
like many other states, New York’s SOR office is simply applying their
requirements for new residents and in-state workers to visitors too. It also follows that if, like hundreds of
thousands of others, you’re a New Jersey or Connecticut resident commuting
daily to your job in New York, you’ll also have to register in New York.
The nice lady at the SOR office
also said that partial days do count (except just passing through); e.g. if
you’re staying in NJ or CT and making daily trips into NYC to see the sights or
to work, each one of those trips will count toward your allowable total.
In May and December 2023 I made trips to the Northeast that illustrates how these
counting rules work. In December I traveled from Florida with my now ex-wife
but still Best Friend Forever to visit relatives and participate in a Wreaths
Across America event on Long Island. We
first stopped in New Jersey to visit with my sister-in-law, but she lives so
close to the New York state line that when we took her out for lunch the
restaurant was in New York State.
That was a destination, right? – so that lunch trip counted toward my allowable
14 days per month. That may seem like an idiotic way to apply their registry
rules, but it’s not my job here to defend any state’s rules. Instead my job is to explain how I navigated
those idiotic rules while in New York so you can do so too. Still, that was just one day, so it didn’t
make a big difference toward my 14 day total.
By the end of the day we were on our way to our reserved hotel room in
Connecticut.
Frank & Sons - Everybody's favorite bakery in Mastic, LI
Two days later we returned to New York State,
this time on the Long Island Ferry from Connecticut. We spent the entire day visiting my BFF’s
relatives, so that was a destination and that made this Day 2 of my allowable
14 days.
I want to interject here that unlike many of my
BFF’s friends and relatives, who hate me to the point where they aren’t even
allowed to know we spend any time together, this particular group has a family
member who has now served 10 years of a life sentence for what as you can
imagine must be a very serious crime.
Although there are many differences between his offense and mine,
including the fact that they all believe he’s innocent, an I’m not, still they
now have a life experience that makes them more understanding of my situation
and I was welcome in their home.
Also, news flash – between 12/23 and our most recent visit in 4/24 the police have arrested a second person in the same decade old crime spree that led to this family member’s arrest. That second person has now pointed investigators at the same third person as the “real perpetrator,” giving new hope to my BFF’s relatives.
After our day-long visit my ex and I retired to
our reserved hotel room. Our intention
was to participate in a Wreaths
Across America event the next day at Long Island Cemetery where her father is
buried.
However, overnight my BFF became very seriously ill. I had become similarly ill two days earlier –
at the restaurant where we took my sister-in-law to lunch. At the time I wondered if it was food
poisoning, but now that my ex was also ill it was obviously some kind of
24 hour bug. The bad news was that due
to a pre-existing medical condition she became much more seriously ill than I
had. We were unable to attend the
Wreaths Across America event which had been the primary purpose of our
trip! Instead she spent the entire day
either in bed or running back and forth to the bathroom, and I spent my Day 3 of my
allowable 14 days in New York
caring for my best friend.
Here I would like to use this story of an unexpected major change to
our travel plan to illustrate how such a change could affect you as a
registered traveler. The silver lining
to our experience was that her illness happened on a day we were already
intending to spend in New York State, at a hotel where we already had the next
night reserved. Although it took my ex
several days to fully recover, she was feeling well enough to travel as planned
by the following day.
Suppose that hadn’t been the case?
Suppose I had ended up having to take my BFF to a hospital for several
days – as has happened in the past. Not
only would that have been super expensive, it would have extended our stay in
New York State by several days AND extended my travel for several days beyond
what I had reported in Florida.
Suppose also that instead of New York we had been in a state with
super-short grace periods for visiting registrants, where I had only hours to
leave before an obligation to register would take affect? Tennessee (48 hours), Wyoming, Nebraska and
Kansas (all 3 business days), Illinois and Florida (3 days aggregate per
calendar year) come to mind. My registry
status could have been called into question just when my ex-wife needed me
most. This is why you must be very
careful about the rules of your destination state while traveling.
Nevertheless, on the morning of Day 4 of my allowable 14 days in New York my BFF and I set off early – we
had to be home in Tallahassee by the end of the next day because each one of us
had family obligations starting the day after that.
And we made it! *Whew!*
Previous visit: May 2023
Fort William Henry near Lake Champlain
In May 2023 I was staying at my
brother’s house in New Jersey for four consecutive days to attend his interment
and celebration of life. His house is so
close to the New York state line that the closest town is in New York. I was helping my sister-in-law out with the
preparations and clean-up and that took me on daily trips into New York State,
each with a destination e.g. the Shop Rite supermarket.
Presumably every time I went
with her to town to pick up food or gasoline that was a “partial day” trip that
counted toward my allotted 10 consecutive days or 14 per month, because
technically I wasn’t “just passing through.”
I had a specific destination in New York State.
On the fourth day it was time
to say goodbye to my sister-in-law and travel north up the New York Thruway on
my way to Vermont and Maine. If I had
done no sight-seeing in New York State that day it would have been considered
“just passing through” and according to the SOR office would not have counted toward
my total. But instead I stopped to see Fort William Henry, a French &
Indian War site, and that meant I had a “destination” in New York State.
Not to worry – that’s a total
of four consecutive partial days, well below my allowable total of ten
consecutive days. Fine.
The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY
Then I returned to New York two
days later to continue my journey.
Because I had spent one full day and two nights outside New York, that
meant I was able to re-start the ten consecutive day clock. The 14 day aggregate days per month clock,
however, continued at Day 5. Confused
yet?
On this pass through New York I
entered from Massachusetts, spent two leisurely days traveling across Upstate
New York before exiting on I-90 into PA and Ohio. That’s two days on the consecutive day clock
and two additional days on the aggregate day clock for a total of six
days. Again, not to worry – it’s still
well below the 14 aggregate days you and I are allowed to be in New York
without triggering an obligation to register.
Among the stops I made on this
second pass through New York State were: Erie Canal; Cherry Valley Museum,
which wasn’t scheduled to open until Memorial Day but there were people getting
the place ready who invited me in for a tour; Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall
of Fame; Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, and if you don’t know
who Gerrit Smith was you should look him up; Seneca Nations Onohsagweide
Cultural Center; and two privately operated rock outcroppings – one called Rock
City Park and the other called Panama Rocks.
Both really impressive.
Is this a dinosaur at the Museum of Natural History?
No! It's The Oculus across the street from Ground Zero!
On another previous trip to my
brother’s house in New Jersey I wanted to spend a day visiting a few sights in
Manhattan. It had been years, meaning
since before I got arrested and went to prison.
I commuted to Hoboken on one of New Jersey’s many rail lines and took a
PATH train to Lower Manhattan. After
disembarking at the World Trade Center I visited Ground Zero. Then took a subway uptown to Times Square,
which I took in while having a chili dog and a pretzel for lunch. Hey, what else would you have in New York,
right?
I spent most of that afternoon
at the Museum of Natural History, but also had time to walk the length of
Manhattan’s Hi Line linear park. Then it
was back to Hoboken, where I ate dinner at a Cuban restaurant (again, what
else, right?). Then boarded my commuter
train back to my brother’s house.
All together a great day in New
York City and only used up one partial day with destinations.
