Another appeal for the notorious New York sex offender who committed crimes in New York has been rejected

The New York Supreme Court has rejected a notorious sex offender with ties to Nova Scotia’s attempt to get a 2022 parole decision that would get him out of prison.

The decision comes as William Shrubsall, 53, faces another parole hearing later this month.

On the third day of a 1996 trial in Niagara Falls, New York, for sexually assaulting a young girl, Shrubsall failed to appear. His lawyer revealed that his client left a suicide note saying he was going to jump into Niagara Falls. This was also the day that jury deliberations began.

Shrubsall showed up in Halifax within days. He lived under several aliases and committed a series of violent crimes and sexual assaults before being arrested in June 1998.

Shrubsall was classified as a dangerous offender in 2001 and sentenced to an indeterminate prison sentence.

A CBC News investigation found that Canadian Parole Board members did not dispute factual misrepresentations made to them by Shrubsall in a 2018 parole hearing. Her controversial decision to parole him paved the way for his deportation to the United States in 2019 and sparked outrage.

In 2020, Shrubsall pleaded guilty to bail jumping and criminal contemptbut he appealed it, arguing, among other things, that his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been denied.

A 2023 court decision from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Fourth Department, rejected Shrubsall’s appeal, noting that “the reason for the extraordinary delay here was the defendant’s decision to withdraw from his ongoing sex offense trial.” keep away.”

Shrubsall’s latest legal maneuver was an attempt to get the New York State Board of Parole to overturn the 2022 decision that found his release was “incompatible with the welfare of society.”

He appealed that decision to the state Supreme Court in Wyoming County. In a Sept. 8, 2023, ruling, Acting Supreme Court Justice Michael M. Mohun wrote that parole board members had “sufficiently explained” their reasons for denying parole, citing Shrubsall’s “immediate criminal offenses and his prior convictions.” “.

What the latest court decision says

Shrubsall appealed the decision, which was rejected late last month by the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, Fourth Department.

The latest decision notes that Shrubsall argued that the parole board “failed to measure his rehabilitation within the framework of applicable law because it did not use a risk and needs assessment tool tailored to his programs.”

However, the court disagreed.

The decision went on to say that despite Shrubsall’s arguments, “the panel properly considered the necessary factors and adequately explained its reasons for rejecting the applicant’s request for release and that there was no evidence of irrationality bordering on unreasonableness,” it said it further.

Another parole hearing this month

It is unclear how long Shrubsall will remain in custody. If his parole hearing later this month results in him not being released, his conditional release date will be June 2027.

Shrubsall’s long criminal history dates back to his teenage years.

In 1988, at age 17, he beat his mother to death with a baseball bat the night before his high school graduation in Niagara Falls, where he was to be the valedictorian. He ended up spending 16 months in prison.