Concord University has a registered sex offender on the faculty, college officials confirmed Tuesday — but he’s actually just a streaker. James Edward Parker, 58, is listed on the Pennsylvania sex offender registry as having committed “indecent assault,” defined as sexual touching of a child under 13. But when Concord officials started looking into the matter, they discovered that their new hire had actually streaked through a park more than a decade ago, said Dean Turner, Concord’s academic dean.
Parker later moved to Pennsylvania, and because of his streaker past was required to register as a sex offender. But the closest thing Pennsylvania’s registry had to “indecent exposure” was the much grimmer “indecent assault,” Turner said. “He tried to get that changed for a long period of time,” Turner said. “But the State Police weren’t willing to do that. His employment was, in at least one instance, impacted by that.”
Secrecy has surrounded the story at Concord. At first, when Parker was hired in August, university officials didn’t know he was listed as a sex offender. Concord’s faculty employment application doesn’t ask. But “when he arrived in our part of the country, he went to the State Police and registered” as a sex offender, “as he is supposed to do,” Turner said. “The State Police notified our security department.”
Concord officials still didn’t know they were dealing with a streaker rather than a child molester. Their lawyer advised them that since Parker hadn’t misrepresented himself, they had no cause to fire him. Turner is still cautious when he talks about the matter, because laws protect registered sex offenders from harassment. “From what we understood, he didn’t seem to be a threat to the community, and the appropriate people in the community had been notified,” Turner said. That was the end of that, for a while. But the story was getting around. ..News Source.. by TARA TUCKWILLER
No comments:
Post a Comment