GIOIA BLASTS PERVS IN PROJECTS:

Gioia, foreground, joined by Pastor Mitchell G. Taylor, chairman of the East River Development Alliance.

Alarmed over a press report that 3,000 highest risk sex offenders and predators are living illegally in city public housing projects, 15 of them in Queens, Councilmember Eric Gioia (D-Long Island City) called for closer scrutiny of the perverts by the Police Department

Gioia said the Police Department provides information every six months about how many sex offenders are living in the projects illegally, but that is not good enough.

"It should be done every single month, if not every single week," Gioia said He also complained that the police and the city Housing Authority were not enforcing a federal law that permits the removal of sex offenders from the projects.

Gioia was upset about the report and the way authorities are dealing with the problem because a registered sex offender allegedly tried to rape an elderly woman in the Ravenswood Houses in Long Island City in Gioia's district.

Gioia said he had confirmed the press report findings independently and plans to hold council hearings on the problem sometime soon.