A Megan's Law offender convicted of sexually assaulting a girl while on supervised release was sentenced to 11½ years in prison.
Jose Rodriguez, 70, assaulted the girl at his Egg Harbor City home after taking her to Walmart to buy her a gift for her 12th birthday in 2018.
After the assault, he paid the girl $10 not to tell her mother. The girl told her mother what "Don Jose" did to her later that night.
The girl's mother was unaware Rodriguez was a registered sex offender for a 2002 conviction.
He was not listed on the public registry, despite already being a Type 2 offender, considered "moderate risk" under the three-tier system.
That is not uncommon, attorneys familiar with Megan’s Law told BreakingAC.
When an offender is convicted or pleads guilty to an offense, they go through a Megan’s Law tier hearing, which using a numeric system to determine which tier the offender is listed under and whether they must be listed publicly.
Those hearings are not open to the public.
Rodriguez also lived only about a tenth of a mile from the Charles Spragg Elementary School. The school did not answer earlier requests seeking comment about whether they were alerted of the sex offender living nearby.
A jury took only about a half-hour to convict Rodriguez on the new charges in November.
He was convicted of two counts of aggravated sexual assault, child endangerment and the Megan's Law violation.
Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years on the sex assault charges and five on the endangerment, all running concurrent.
He got a consecutive 18-month sentence for the Megan's Law violation, which happened as soon as he was alone in a car with the girl.
He must serve at least 8½ years before he is eligible for parole.
With 561 days of credit, he meaning he will be about 77 before he is eligible for release. Then he would again have lifetime supervision under Megan's Law.
