FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Oct. 29 (UPI) -- A Florida judge refused to give more jail time to a sex offender who has no legal place to live, the convict's attorney said.
Raphael Marquez, 38, was granted a request in June to be allowed to stay behind bars, but this time Broward Circuit Judge Marc Gold refused Marquez's request to serve another year instead of 18 years probation, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Thursday.
Marquez, who will be released from jail Saturday, said the living quarters he can afford are too close to places frequented by children, he has nowhere to go. The two closest sex offender residential facilities are too expensive, he said.
Twenty-eight of Broward's 31 cities prohibit sexual offenders from living within 2,500 feet of places where children are commonly found, such as bus stops, schools and parks, the newspaper reported.
"He will be literally walking the streets and that doesn't serve the interests of society. It's inhumane," Marquez's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Cheryl Koewing, said.
Gold ordered probation officials not to issue any warrants for Marquez "unless there's a willful, knowing, material (probation) violation."
"There's nothing else I can do. The Legislature has got to realize we're digging ourselves into a hole and it's only going to get deeper, and deeper, and deeper," Gold said.
