News and Information

School scanner leads to man's arrest
STEVE THOMPSON and REBECCA CATALANELLO, September 24, 2005

The Trinity man is in jail, charged with failure to register as a sex offender, relating to a case in Illinois.

TRINITY - The man arrives at Seven Springs Elementary School with his girlfriend to drop off her son's lunch box.

His girlfriend doesn't have her identification handy. So he hands his over.

The front desk secretary inserts it into an optical scanner. A visitor's pass pops out with the man's name, David Bryson Rutherford, the date, Sept. 22, and his photo, which is taken from his Florida ID card.

But in those same few seconds, Rutherford's name and date of birth make their way through a database of sex offenders in more than 40 states.

Suddenly, a red bar appears across the secretary's computer screen. There's a match.

A photo of the sex offender pops up.

It's the man across the desk from her.

Rutherford, 26, was arrested Thursday on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender. Before an assistant principal got to the front desk, Rutherford and his girlfriend dropped off the lunch box and left. But Pasco County sheriff's deputies caught up with him later at their home on 5200 Behms Court.

He moved to the home in February from out of state, and he later got the Florida ID card. But he never registered here as a sex offender, a Pasco sheriff's report says.

Illinois' online sex offender registry shows he was convicted for aggravated sexual assault on a victim under 13. A clerk at the Randolph County, Ill., prosecutor's office said Friday that a David Rutherford pleaded guilty there to that charge in October 1995.

Rutherford was being held Friday at the Pasco County jail on $2,500 bail. He declined to talk to a Times reporter.

Thursday's incident marks the first time one of the school district's ID scanners has led to an arrest, school district spokeswoman Lori Yusko said. It's the first time, in fact, one has identified someone as a sex offender.

Lake Myrtle started using the scanner in spring 2004; Seven Springs less than two months ago. Two other Pasco schools - Woodland and Sanders elementaries - have purchased the system and are in the process of hooking it up, Yusko said. The district is exploring plans to buy a similar visitor screening system for all campuses in the county. The Raptor Technologies version cost Seven Springs $1,600 plus an annual fee, she said.