News and Information

School's system detects offender
Sunset Hills Elementary's new visitor log-in system alerts officials to a subcontractor who is a registered sex offender.
ROBIN STEIN, Published February 9, 2006, St. Petersburg Times

TARPON SPRINGS - Whether the sex offender who went to Sunset Hills Elementary School on Monday would have come into contact with children is debatable.

But one thing is clear. He is the kind of visitor parents would not want inside the school without alarm bells sounding.

And that is exactly what happened Monday afternoon.

About 2 p.m., Officer Mike Kazouris and principal Rory Morris-Richardson received automated text messages from the school's new visitor log system notifying them that a convicted sex offender had just signed in.

James George Owens, 51, of Lakeland had come to the school to repair cabinets in the office along with his boss, John J. Spahn, a subcontractor for the Pinellas County School Board.

After the alert, Kazouris went to the school, conducted a background check on Owens and spoke to him and Spahn. He then asked them both to leave the property, according to a police report.

Owens did not break any laws by going to the school and has complied with all sex offender registration requirements, police said.

Sunset Hills is one of the 27 Pinellas County schools that uses a $1,500 visitor log-in system made by Texas-based Raptor Technologies, according to Allan Measom, company president.

Last August, the School Board approved its use on a trial basis at Tarpon Springs Elementary, and word of the technology spread. Sunset Hills' school advisory council heard about the system and wanted one, Morris-Richardson said.

"This is actually our first alert," she said.

The system works by checking state identification and driver's license information of visitors against sex offender databases in 48 states.

The system is one of the measures and policies the School Board has put in place in the wake of the Jessica Lunsford Act, which requires FBI Level 2 screening for people who do contract work for schools. But there are points where safeguards overlap or remain ambiguous.

While Raptor identified Owens as a registered sex offender, he did not have a required identification card to work on school grounds anyway. People who have been convicted of a crime involving "moral turpitude" cannot get the ID cards.

"All construction workers on School Board sites where students are present must be screened, even if the site is fenced," the School Board's Web site states.

The Raptor system is meant to target people who normally wouldn't be screened, such as parents, relatives and other nonvendor visitors.

"There are a percentage of parents and guardians who are sex offenders," Measom said. "We've had instances of Uncle Bob coming to school, and he's a two-time sex offender."

Although the school might not be able to prohibit these people from entering, the Raptor system helps make sure their presence is known and proper precautions are taken.

Kazouris, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday, told the Times in August when the pilot began at Tarpon Springs Elementary School that decisions on whether sex offenders could be allowed on school grounds would be made on a case-by-case basis.

"Just because they come up as a sex offender doesn't mean they'd be denied," Kazouris said then. "The front desk would wait until an officer showed up, and that officer would determine the person's status and we'd make provisions."

Spahn, the subcontractor for the Pinellas County School Board, told officers that Owens' status as a sex offender did not come up during the company's background check.

According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, Owens has been convicted of several felonies, including two sexual offenses. In 1985, he was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for criminal sexual conduct. In 1997, he spent another year in prison for a sex offense.

Owens recently moved to Florida from Michigan and was properly registered with Polk County authorities, police found.

Measom said the software picked up an unregistered sex offender from Illinois at a Pasco County school last year.

"He was later arrested for failure to comply with the Jessica Lunsford Act, which makes it a third-degree felony if a registered offender moves to Florida and does not re-register," he said. "Now he is listed on the (state) database."