Danny Goldston: Homeless Predator

This is a followup entry to yesterday's "Man in Custody on Rape, Torture Charges Has Previous Arrest Record."

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Danny Goldston is accused of cutting and stabbing another man multiple times on the front porch of a church where the man and his female companion, who becomes his victim, were sleeping. The man was stabbed near the center of his chest, was cut on his chin and suffered lacerations on his forehead, right elbow and right wrist.

He then forced the woman into a wooded area, where he raped her and abused her for two days before letting her go.

News reports today have revealed that Goldston was living at the men's homeless shelter near downtown Raleigh, the Wilmington Street Shelter, located at 1420 S. Wilmington Street.

This shelter is not a new place for me. I have done some research about the shelter and its inhabitants, and it is not what I would consider a safe place to be.

The South Wilmington Street Center for men is open to any single man 18 years old or older.This includes sex offenders. Carson Dean, director of the shelter, has said criminal background checks are not performed, and sex offenders are not prohibited from using the shelter.

"Our job is to help guys who want our help to become self-sufficient," Dean said.

The shelter has 234 beds, 110 of which are for the emergency part of the shelter, where anyone who's never stayed there before can come in anytime to get a bed for the night. The shelter is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, but most men are not allowed in the shelter for most of the day.

"Most guys can't be in here during the day time," Dean said, "because we want them looking for work or going to doctor's appointments."

As a result, the men leave the shelter after breakfast, and do not return to the shelter until 4 or 5 p.m., when the shelter re-opens.

According to the Sex Offender Registry, 20 convicted sex offenders list the Wilmington Street Center as their place of residence. Of those 20 offenders, two were convicted of first-degree rape, four were convicted of second-degree rape, three were convicted of second-degree sexual offense, one was convicted of sexual battery, one was convicted of sexual offense with certain victims, and nine were convicted of indecent liberty with a minor.

In a screenshot of sex offenders within a 3-mile radius of the shelter, pictured to the left, the Registry lists 137 offenders.

Mike Rakouskas, a parole officer for sex offenders of Wake County, said homeless people don't necessarily stay in the shelter, so there could be others.

"It feels like a problem, I don't know how to classify that," Rakouskas said. "I feel kind of strange knowing that there's a bunch of sex offenders living at this homeless shelter."

The shelter, he said, was at one time a point of controversy, but he doesn't know if it's like that anymore.

"I can tell you that there was a stretch of time where all across the state, that shelter had a reputation for taking in sex offenders," Rakouskas said "So if somebody got released from prison anywhere in the state, if they knew about the shelter, they would … transfer down there."

Rakouskas's understanding is that that process has stopped, that only sex offenders who are convicted in Wake County can reside at the shelter.

"For a while, it seemed like we'd get calls from across the state from [sex offenders] being funneled into that shelter, which I thought was real scary," he said.

Every sex offender placed on probation has a set of conditions he or she has to follow, Raskhouskas said. Among those conditions are obvious ones, such as not communicating with or being in the presence of a victim of an offense and not residing in a household with a minor if convicted of child sexual assault. Parole officers are also required to check on offenders.

"We now do an assessment that tells us the risk level [of offenders], determines how often we see them," Raskhouskas said.

Offenders have to go to the parole offices once a month. If an offender is determined to be low risk, officers have to see them a minimum of every other month at their place of residence. If an offender is classified as high risk, officers are supposed to see the offender every other week, most of the time at their home.

In addition, sex offenders on parole may be required to undergo treatment. The best treatment for sex offenders, Raskouskas said, is group treatment, which is supposedly more effective than a private therapist because offenders can yell at each other and catch each other in lies.

"You might have two or three people who are in the same boat gang up on somebody and say that's not true," he said. "It's considered to be more effective."

Goldston was not a registered sex offender, though he was previously charged with assault on a female. But now, another homeless man who lives at the Wilmington Street Shelter is accused of sexually assaulting a female. Not all homeless people are dangerous, but sex offenders have a higher recidivism rate than all other criminals except drug dealers - sex offenders who are homeless are an extreme threat.

How many more women must be victims of homeless sexual predators before something is done to prevent this from happening?

One of my sources is an article written by me in the Technician entitled "Homeless cause concern, fear for students.