SAN FRANCISCO—A homeless man who’s a convicted child sex offender set up camp across the street from a K–8 Catholic school with signs that read “Free fentanyl for users” and “Meth for stolen items,” according to The San Francisco Standard.
Joseph Adam Moore, 46, the registered sex offender, was living in a tent on Ninth Avenue and Geary Boulevard near the Stella Maris Academy and the Richmond District library.
“We don’t want anything of that nature anywhere near our schools,” Peter Marlow, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which operates the nearby Catholic school, told The SF Standard. “We want to make sure the children and the families feel safe—that’s the goal.
“The school works with law enforcement and city officials to manage unhoused individuals who are perhaps too close to the students. It’s a frequent thing.”
Mr. Marlow told the media outlet that he had seen Mr. Moore periodically for about a year camping in the neighborhood, but he didn’t see any signs up during that time.
The SF Standard asked Mr. Moore about the signs, and he said they had been up for only a couple days and that he had received a charged response.
“People have threatened my life,” he told the media outlet. “They’ve driven by, told me to take the signs down, and [asked] what am I doing in front of a school and a bunch of stuff.”
When The SF Standard asked if he was actually selling drugs, Mr. Moore laughed and said he was.
“But only because I’m tired. I’m tired. If you guys want to flush the whole world down the toilet, if you guys want to ignore people like me, it’s at your own peril. I mean, I’m a savant,” he said.
According to The SF Standard, when San Francisco police officers told Mr. Moore to leave, he refused and responded with obscene language, calling the police corrupt.
Officers on the scene said they had been responding to his encampment two to three times daily since he posted the signs offering drugs outside of his tent.
In an effort to get Mr. Moore to leave, the police were going to cite him as a nuisance under California Penal Code 370, which is a misdemeanor, and release him at the scene, police Lt. Wayman Young told The SF Standard.
But just before the Department of Public Works came to remove his belongings, he moved his items just far enough away to evade efforts to get him away from the school.
Instead, police arrested Mr. Moore in relation to a pending probation violation, Lt. Young told The SF Standard.
The Richmond District police station’s Capt. Chris Canning told The SF Standard that Mr. Moore is on probation for violating a stay-away order. The order was issued last year after he created a nuisance by camping behind a San Francisco firehouse.
The day after the arrest, Mr. Moore was back on the block. Local residents said they were outraged that he was released and able to return to the area.
Resident Derek Lee said he has seen Mr. Moore camping at Ninth Avenue and Geary Boulevard for about four to five years.
“I mean, he’s a registered sex offender, and he’s living near a school,” Mr. Lee told The SF Standard. “He’s got to go.”
According to ABC7 News, Mr. Moore doesn’t need to stay 2,000 feet away from schools as part of his conviction because he isn’t deemed a high-risk offender.
Days later, records show, he was finally booked into jail, according to The SF Standard.
“We believe that he presented a public safety risk that necessitated him being in custody while this case is open,” District Attorney Brooke Jenkins told ABC7 News.
Mr. Moore will be charged with one misdemeanor count of creating a public nuisance and one misdemeanor count of battery, Ms. Jenkins told The SF Standard.
According to the media outlet, the police arrested Mr. Moore for battery because he threw liquid on someone, which escalated into a physical altercation. He told The SF Standard that he was punched in the face by a parent from the Stella Maris Academy.
ABC7 News’s Dan Noyes reported that Mr. Moore poured a gallon jug of apple juice over a parent before the parent hit him.
Mr. Moore’s attorney, Erica Franklin, told The SF Standard that the parent, a man, came over and tried to remove Mr. Moore’s signs and threatened to burn his property. The police refused to arrest this other man and arrested Mr. Moore instead.
Weeks prior, Mr. Noyes asked Mr. Moore if he was actually giving away fentanyl or if it was a joke.
Mr. Moore answered, “No, it’s not a joke.”
He told ABC7 News that homeless people sometimes gave him fentanyl in exchange for blankets or food and that he passed the drugs on to other homeless people who wanted them.
According to The SF Standard, Mr. Moore didn’t dismiss the possibility of posting similar signs again and said he’s in the process of selling the original signs.
San Francisco Superior Court documents show that Mr. Moore has been arrested five times in the city since 2007 for allegedly failing to re-register his address as a sex offender every 30 days, according to The SF Standard.
The California Megan’s Law website lists Mr. Moore as a transient in San Francisco with a conviction of lewd or lascivious acts with a child younger than 14 years of age in 1997 and released in 2002. He’s currently flagged on the website as being in violation.
According to an October 1997 report from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, Mr. Moore was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old girl in Santa Clara County earlier in the year. He had been out of custody for just more than a month when he got drunk with a 15-year-old girl, which led to an incident of statutory rape at a Santa Cruz Beach. He had been charged with rape, but he agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of statutory rape and to spend six years behind bars, according to Assistant District Attorney Patty Bazar.
