Parents, Girl To Testify On Sex Offenders Notification Sought After Hauser Lake Incident

A Hauser Lake family will testify in Boise next week in favor of better sex offender notification laws.

Sandy and Ralph Tatham will travel with their 16-year-old daughter next Wednesday to make their case before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This month, the family and several Hauser Lake neighbors staged a picket against Mario Rios Sr., a 59-year-old convicted sex offender who moved back to his home two houses away from the Tathams’ daughter, whom he molested several years ago.

Following the picket, Rios moved.

The Tathams were invited to testify before the committee by Attorney General Al Lance, said Josh Buehner, president of North Idaho College’s Human Equality Club. Buehner, a student civil rights activist who helped organize the Hauser Lake picket, also will testify in favor of Lance’s Child Protection Act.

Under current law, residents have no way of knowing whether a convicted sex offender has moved into their community.

Lance’s Child Protection Act, as well as several other legislative proposals, would strengthen tracking in the state and increase public access to information about sex offenders in the community.

“The current language in my bill will allow you as a reporter or any citizen to go down to wherever the registry is and get information on any sex offender,” said Sen. Gary Schroeder, R-Moscow.

Convicted of two counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in 1994, Rios returned to live in Hauser Lake while on probation in August 1997.

The Tathams didn’t realize he was living nearby until their daughter saw him driving down the street several months later.

The day of the Hauser Lake picket, Rios had been instructed to move away from the residence and did so, said Scott Grant, a section supervisor for the state probation and parole department in Coeur d’Alene.

“This is an issue the Legislature needs to take a look at so we have some direction,” Grant said. “I think that what they (the family) are doing will only help the Legislature make their decision.”

, DataTimes