City officials stuck five registered sex offenders — including two convicted pedophiles — into a homeless shelter surrounded by schools in Manhattan’s Financial District, The Post has learned.
The move marked the second time the Department of Homeless Services has infuriated Big Apple residents by dumping deviant ex-cons into their neighborhoods amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As parents, we cannot count on local government to look out for our children,” one irate FiDi mom said.
“I am not opposed to helping those in need and providing shelters for the homeless in my community, but I am against placing violent pedophiles with a block of schools.”
The latest outrage involves the former Radisson Hotel at 52 William St., which was turned into a temporary shelter in March 2020.
As of Thursday, the state’s official sex-offender registry showed four of the men still listing the location, just two blocks from the landmark New York Stock Exchange building, as their address.
But opposition from community members who learned about their notorious new neighbors earlier this month apparently forced them to be relocated recently, with emails obtained by The Post showing that DHS said it had “resolved” the “placement issues at this site.”
Online records show the ex-cons who list the shelter as their address include Lee Jackson, 42, a Level 3 sexually violent offender — the worst of the worst — who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a random 7-year-old girl in Brooklyn in 2005.
Jackson, who was paroled in 2016, was also convicted of manslaughter but it was unclear Thursday if the two crimes were related.
Another pedophile — Lonzel McNeil, 53 — was also given a private room in the shelter, which is less than a block from the private Pine Street School for pre-K and elementary students and is among two schools and a daycare center within 500 feet.
McNeil was convicted of raping an 11-year-old girl in Brooklyn in 1993 and was paroled in 2000.
State law prohibits Level 3 sex offenders and those whose crimes involved minors from living within 1,000 feet of a school — but only while they remain on parole, which neither Jackson nor McNeil still are.
A mom whose two kids, ages 3 and 5, attend the Pine Street School said officials there filed a complaint that helped get the men booted.
“It’s scary,” she said.
“Families no longer feel safe. We don’t feel our kids are safe…I used to take nightly walks, 10 to 11 p.m. I no longer leave my house alone at night.”
Even a homeless resident of the Radisson was upset to learn he’d been sharing the place with convicted pedophiles.
“If you got kids you should feel the same way. There are certain things you just don’t do,” said Don Parker, 52.
In August 2020, The Post revealed that DHS used the Belleclaire hotel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to house at least six homeless pedophiles on parole — even though it’s just a block from an elementary school playground.
DHS spokesman Isaac McGinn said in written statement that the agency places people in shelters “in accordance with State law, based on the information available to us via State databases – which are not updated live or in real-time.”
“While we cannot discuss any specific cases or disclose confidential case histories, which would violate NYS Social Services Law, at this time there are no [registered sex offenders] currently residing at this location,” he added.
