A convicted sex offender whose recent move to a high-rise building in Battery Park City sent shock waves among local parents, will be moving out, according to his lawyer.

Phillip Riback, 53, a former Albany county pediatric neurologist on probation for child sexual abuse, had been living for a short time in the River Terrace building—next door to Stuyvesant High School and a block from P.S./I.S. 89—before word of his presence spread among parents. Both angry and confused, they questioned why Riback would be allowed to live so close to schools, and in a neighborhood filled with children.

“Everybody was absolutely shocked and thinking they would mobilize if something wasn’t done,” said EJ Boyce, a mother of two who lives in the River Terrace building.

Rockrose Development Corp., the owner of the building, issued a statement to the Trib saying that the company was taking “appropriate legal action.”

“The safety and comfort of our tenants is our primary concern,” the statement said. A Rockrose spokesman declined to respond to additional questions.

Riback’s attorney, Paul Shechtman, said that although his client does not plan to contest the “notice of termination,”  he was doing nothing wrong by living there.

“His probation officers know that he lives there, they have visited him there, and they believe that his living there is entirely proper,” Shechtman told the Trib. “He will be moving out, however, because people in the building believe his being there is improper. It is not.” Shechtman also insisted that his client posed no threat to the community.

Riback, originally accused of sexually abusing 14 young male patients in his suburban Albany office, was sentenced to a 48-year prison sentence in 2004. His conviction was overturned in 2009 because of misconduct by a prosecutor. Instead of facing retrial, Riback pleaded guilty to one count of sexual abuse, with a sentence of 5 ½ years served in state prison and 10 years on probation as a registered Level 3 sex offender—the highest designation. His medical license was permanently revoked.

Parents said they couldn’t understand how Riback could be allowed to live so close to schools. Some had pointed to a state law passed in 2006 that prohibits Level 3 convicted sex offenders, whose victims were under the age of 18, from entering school grounds as a mandatory condition of probation. The law defines school grounds as public areas within 1,000 feet of the school’s property line. Riback’s Albany probation orders, obtained by the Trib, reference that law.

Was the city’s Department of Probation doing its job by allowing Riback to move to River Terrace in the first place?

Requests to nearly a dozen relevant county, city and state agencies for clarification on how the state law determines where a sex offender can live in New York City were unsuccessful. Most city and state officials were unable, or unwilling, to discuss that section of penal code, and
how it is applied in New York City. Even the mayor’s office, which oversees the city’s Probation Dept., referred the question back to that department. A Probation Department spokesman would say only that Riback’s residency was being investigated and the agency “would take appropriate action.”

As for parents, learning that Riback is said to be leaving the neighborhood, the question now may seem moot.

“I’m much more at peace,” said a relieved EJ Boyce.