Although Briana Bierschbach's recent profile in MinnPost provided a soft focus of Vernon Center Republican lawmaker Tony Cornish, those who watch him in action often see a much less pleasant side to his public persona.
Take Tuesday's meeting of the Minnesota House Public Safety and Crime Prevention Policy and Finance Committee, which Cornish chairs. During the discussion of HF3260, a bill to allow local governmental units to draft some restrictions related to the residences of Level III sex offenders.
Capitol Report's Mike Mosedale reports in Sex-offender residency bill clears committee:
Cornish also criticized Roy over the placement of two sex offenders in his largely rural district.
“You folks aren’t doing a bang-up job right now of placing these folks,” he said. As an example, Cornish cited the case of “a black guy, a level III sex offender” who was placed in Minnesota Lake, which he described as a “totally white Anglo town.”
“How that could have happened I don’t know,” Cornish said.
The racially tinged soliloquy elicited an exasperated “Wow” from Rep. Raymond Dehn, DFL-Minneapolis.
Here's a Youtube of the moment:
We're surprised that Cornish doesn't know more about the case, since news of the hearing was in Blue Earth county's biggest paper last July.
The case of Jela Deshaun Jones
Unlike Cornish, the Mankato Free Press's Tim Krohn didn't bring up Jones' race in Sex offender meeting brings frustration. Krohn did answer the question about how Jones came to live in Minnesota Lake:
About 150 people from the Faribault County town of 600 residents came to the school to hear Sarah Hustad of the state Department of Corrections explain that a predatory offender is set to move to the town when he's released from prison next week.
After a presentation by Hustad, an increasingly frustrated crowd asked questions and didn't get the answers they wanted to hear as they were told about 38-year-old Jela Deshaun Jones, his history of crime and his intent to live with a family member in Minnesota Lake. . . .
She said the law permits those released from prison to live in communities, work and live free of harassment. Jones will be under intense supervision when he is released, including wearing an GPS monitor and being forbidden from having any contact with minors.
But that supervision won't last long. In about six weeks Jones will have served all of his sentence and will be completely free of any requirements other than having to register with law enforcement as a sex offender if and when he changes addresses.
We understand Cornish's concern about sexual predators, but the "racially tinged soliloquy" makes us join Representative Dehn in saying "Wow" as well.
Jones was living in Le Sueur, Minnesota, when he was arrested at age 23 and convicted of sexually assaulting two sisters with whom he was acquainted. The younger girl was fifteen and Jones used alcohol to get her to "agree" to have sex with him; the older sister was seventeen when he crawled into her bed while she was sleeping and molested her.
He was convicted and served his time, but didn't do so well with earlier releases, Krohn reported:
He got out in 2010 but was sent back to prison four times since for violating terms of his release, including for drinking alcohol and for having porn. He was not re-arrested for any sex crimes.
Not a sympathetic character, but a man who lived in southern Minnesota at the time of his arrest--and one who is now living with a relative. While Cornish thought that living in Minnesota Lake would put pressure on Jones by causing his race to stand out, census figures for Le Sueur in 2000 reveal that only .03 percent (10 people) of the town was African-American. In 2010, tiny Minnesota Lake was .04 percent African-American (3 people). It's not an unusual situation for Jones.
Jones is from the area (his late mother lived in Mankato, LeSueur and St. Peter, according to court records), and another family member was living in Minnesota Lake at the time of his release. What dog was Cornish whistling when he made race the first consideration here?
Screengrab: Tony Cornish, R-Vernon Center, via The Uptake.
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Cornish is also the legislator who told 2 million dog owners that we should "just accept" our dogs being killed in body grip traps. He seems willing to let a few thousand trappers violate the constitutional right to hunt of 300,000 hunters.
Posted by: Jack Spreck | Mar 31, 2016 at 03:39 PM
I checked out his Facebook page a bit. Wow. It's everything you would expect. Fervent Trump supporter, self aggrandizing narcissist, false humility, and a dose of good ol' boy to boot.
Editor's note: We just checked out the page and we saw nothing about Donald Trump.
Posted by: Jonathan Marchand | Apr 01, 2016 at 02:20 PM
According to the Natioanl Institute for Correction and the DOJ, released offenders are statistically LESS likely to reoffend when they live with pro-social family members.
Posted by: John Zanmiller | Apr 02, 2016 at 09:46 AM
This is one that gives away his position.
"Trump's opponents are at it again. Now they make a big stink about his taxes and how he doesn't pay as much taxes as he should. So Trump comes out and says of course he doesn't like paying taxes he does everything he can do to get out of paying taxes any claims every cent of expense to get out of Taxes. Just like most Americans. Nobody really likes paying taxes and that's why they keep every receipt possible , to get as many write offs as possible. So Trump, embraces the policy, and make them look like fools. When will they learn. They need to talk about what they will do and how they will fix the country"
Editor's note: Can you supply a date and link to the post on Cornish's Facebook page?
Posted by: Jonathan Marchand | Apr 04, 2016 at 08:43 AM
That is a post he made on his personal page on February 25th. There is a little back and forth regarding his thoughts about Mitt Romney's speech dated March 4th. I'd link to the post if I could, but I am only able to link to his entire page and not an individual post. I could do a screenshot?
Editor's note:
Here's the February 25 post URL:
https://www.facebook.com/tony.cornish.12/posts/10208629928807059?pnref=story
Here's the March 4 post:
https://www.facebook.com/tony.cornish.12/posts/10208682607884003?pnref=story
This editing software probably would make those links "hot" so reader wishing to look at Jonathan's references will have to copy them and view them that way. You will probably have to be signed into Facebook to see them.
Posted by: Jonathan Marchand | Apr 04, 2016 at 12:12 PM