Another Level 3 sex offender sprung by Mass. Bail Fund
The Mass. Bail Fund has sprung loose another top-level sex offender, this time a Melrose-based repeat-offender who has an extensive record including as a peeping Tom.
“Now they’ve potentially ruined someone else’s life,” Melrose police Chief Michael Lyle told the Herald.
Lyle is very familiar with Tyler Jacquard, the 34-yearold Melrose man who the bail fund put up $30,000 to free this week. Jacquard, already a Level 3 sex offender due to previous convictions for lewd behavior in 2014 and 2015, is charged with publicly committing a sex act on himself near a group of young teenage girls in Lynnfield in June.
According to a police report, Jacquard was exposing himself and committing a sex act on himself near the teenagers in his car in June until a woman yelled at him to leave, which he then did. The cop who wrote the report said Jacquard’s name was immediately familiar to him from the officer’s time working in Melrose.
This comes after the Mass. Bail Fund sprung another Level 3 sex offender, Shawn McClinton, in mid-July, on $15,000 bail. McClinton made headlines two weeks ago when the twice-convicted rapist — behind bars again on charges of a third rape — is now accused of raping another woman after the bail fund let him out.
Lyle noted that the Level 3 sex-offender designation is the most severe such designation the state gives — and means that he’s considered a substantial risk of reoffending. Lyle said Jacquard already has had about 20 interactions with the criminal justice system in his life, with 10 convictions.
“Clearly there’s something amiss with this guy,” Lyle said. “That was something that could have been prevented.”
Lyle said Jacquard has been arrested in Melrose in the past for trespassing and peeking into people’s windows.
Jacquard couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.
The bail fund, whose slogan is “Free them all,” didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday. It repeatedly hasn’t responded to comment over the two weeks since the McClinton news broke, other than to slam the media and others for criticizing the move. The fund doubled down, not mentioning the McClinton case directly, but saying it would continue to pay increasingly high amounts to bail people without regard to what they’re charged with.
“We post bail for people regardless of charge or court history,” the bail fund wrote last week. “Our self-imposed monetary limit has only ever existed to ensure our often resource-limited fund remains sustainable and predictable for people seeking our assistance.”
The fund has taken criticism from progressives including Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins, the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, and Boston University’s student radio WTBU, which canceled a planned benefit concert for the fund. Mayor Martin Walsh called the fund’s actions around McClinton “a disgrace.”