OH- Sex offender will move back in during appeal

12-19-2008 Ohio:

TROY — A Piqua registered sex offender will move back in with his wife and children until the courts decide his challenge of a Miami County judge's order that he was in contempt for moving into a Piqua residence he had vacated previously under court order.

Edward Burge, 35, "is very happy to be able to spend Christmas at home with his wife and kids," his lawyer, Margie Slagle, said Friday, Dec. 19.

Ohio's 2nd District Court of Appeals on Friday approved Burge's request for a stay on the order issued in November by county Common Pleas Judge Robert Lindeman.

The judge gave Burge until Nov. 21 to move or face 30 days in jail. Burge temporarily moved in with a friend to avoid jail, according to his appeal and the request for the stay of Lindeman's order.

In 2006 Burge was ordered from the address where his wife and children live because the apartment was within 1,000 feet of Piqua Catholic school's Downing Street elementary school.

Burge was convicted in 2000 of attempted unlawful sexual conduct with minor and labeled a sexually oriented offender.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled early this year that a 2003 law regarding the 1,000-foot rule did not apply to those convicted and living in a residence before the law was passed. Prosecutors and defense lawyers disagreed on whether the ruling dealt only with those who owned the residence.

Burge has appeared on a CBS News segment on sex offender residency restrictions and on "The Montel Williams Show" to discuss controversial residency laws.

Lindeman said in November that Burge had no appeal pending when the case was decided by the Supreme Court. As a result, the 2006 order "is voidable, but not void," the judge wrote.

Slagle said, Burge "assumed" the 2006 order would be dropped because the court had already decided in a separate case that the residency restriction did not apply to him. That decision was appealed to the 2nd District Court by Miami County prosecutors and is pending. ..News Source.. by Nancy Bowman, Staff Writer