Ohio State admitted three graduate students who are registered sex offenders.
One is a teaching assistant, which means he works directly with students, while the other two are research assistants. The three are classified as sexually oriented offenders, the least serious category, and their crimes include downloading child pornography, creating child pornography and sexual battery.
And, there was no way for OSU officials to know any of the three were registered sex offenders when they applied for admission because of a loophole in the application procedure, which was only recently closed.
“It’s never been on the application and I didn’t know why,” said Nance Hoza, director of graduate, international and professional admissions. “So this year we are asking these questions.”
It is OSU’s current procedure that students applying for undergraduate admission must indicate whether they have been convicted of a felony in the past several years. Professional school applicants (law, business and medical schools) must do the same.
“Undergraduate admissions prompted us to put it in the graduate admissions,” Hoza said.
The question, she said, will be added to the application for those applying to OSU for the 2008-09 academic year.
Answering “yes” on the graduate school application does not mean an automatic no, Hoza said, and the admissions procedure will be similar to that for undergraduate admission. This means the university will look at each on a case-by-case basis.
“We don’t want to bar students, we just want to make sure they’re ready; we want them to succeed,” said Louise Douce, director of counseling and consultation services and assistant vice president of student affairs, of admitted students with felonies.
Douce sits on the Q9Q10 committee – named after question nine on the undergraduate application – and said there were 27 undergraduate applicants with felonies presented to the committee in 2006 and 20 so far in 2007. She said she is not sure how many of these applicants were admitted.
A Lantern search found five OSU undergraduates on the Attorney General’s Web site of registered sex offenders. The charges include importuning, gross sexual imposition, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, sexual battery and attempted sexual conduct with a minor.
Employed Offenders
Because the university has never required graduate school applicants to indicate if they have any felonies, the three graduate students were accepted without falsifying their applications.
The teaching assistant was charged with child pornography, creating films, videotapes and photography in 1998, according to DuPage County, Ill. police. He pleaded guilty, paid a $2,000 fine and was placed on probation for 24 months. He must register as a sex offender for 10 years – a period that ends on Sept. 11, 2008.
“It’s not indicative of my character,” he said. “I made a terrible lapse in judgment.”
The teaching assistant said he took a picture of his godmother’s sleeping daughters – 7 and 10 years old at the time – while on vacation. One of the girls was not wearing underwear or pants. When he picked up the film from a photo processing laboratory, he said he noticed one roll of the film was missing. The photo developers called the police, who confiscated the film and arrested him.
The chairman of the offender’s department, who has a role in the hiring of teaching assistants, said neither he nor the university were aware this person was a registered sex offender at the time of hiring, nor did they run a background check.
“If the university made it feasible to do that (we would),” he said. “We have 120 applicants for our positions for our TA-ships each year. We ordinarily accept 15-20.”
The university does not routinely use background checks on students considered for the teaching assistant positions, according to university officials.
“I think in each case, these departments know,” university spokesman Jim Lynch said. “You need to understand the circumstances are different and the department chair will weigh those risks. The Franklin County Sheriff’s Office has a system in place to notify the university when there is a sexual offender living or working in the area. We maintain these files on this within the Department of Public Safety.”
The teaching assistant, who works with about 50 students, said he told the chairman of his criminal record during the summer.
The chairman said there are procedures in place to protect students. “(If) we receive any evidence, about any matter, that raises a concern about safety of our students or the educational environment, then we examine it, find out what the facts are, and if there are steps that needed to be taken, we take them,” he said. “I think that the conditions under which students should be aware of such things are an issue that the university should examine and set a policy on.”
A graduate research assistant was charged with importuning, according to Franklin County Sheriff reports. He was caught having a sexually explicit conversation online with someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl, but turned out to be a Clark County deputy. Police then searched his residence and found multiple still images of naked children and at least seven sex-related movies involving teenage minors, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
“It’s been a struggle. I’ve lost everything,” he said. “The one positive thing is the university let me finish.”
He will spend 54 days in jail and will be put on probation for five years.
A graduate research assistant was charged with sexual battery, according to Attorney General reports. He declined to comment.
What is a sex offender?
There are five varying classifications of sex offenders, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.
The most serious is a sexual predator, someone who has been convicted of committing a sexually oriented offense and is likely to commit additional sex offenses.
Child victim predators have been convicted of committing sexually-oriented offenses against someone under the age of 18 and are considered likely to commit additional offenses; a habitual sex offender is a repeat offender; a habitual child victim offender is also a repeat offender.
The three graduate students and five undergraduates at OSU are listed as a sexually oriented offenders, which means the person has been convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, committing a sexually oriented offense, but has not been designated a predator or habitual sex offender. All must register annually for 10 years after their release.
A person might become a sex offender if they are convicted of committing any form of sex crimes, including rape, sexual battery, unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, sexual imposition, importuning, voyeurism, public indecency, promoting prostitution, pandering obscenity, procuring and illegal use of minor in nudity-oriented material or performance.
How to find them
Megan’s Law is legislation named after Megan Kanka, who was killed when she was 7 years old in 1994 in Hamiliton Township, New Jersey. Jesse Timmerndequas, a neighbor and twice-convicted sex offender, was sentenced to death for Megan’s murder and rape.
Kanka’s parents lobbied for new laws requiring officials to find ways to warn neighbors when sex offenders move into neighborhoods. In May 1996, the federal Megan’s Law was signed by President Clinton requiring all states to disclose to the public various information about sex offenders, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Web site.
Any sex offender released from prison before the registrations went into requirement in 1997, however, might not be required by law to register with the Sheriff’s Office.
Students entering OSU do not need to register with University Police, just the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office.
Assistant Chief of University Police Rick Amweg said OSU employees do not nee
d to register with his office. There is an admissions process that is designed to identify all registered felons, not just sex offenders, he said.
Anyone can search the Ohio Attorney General’s Web site (ag.state.oh.us/citizen/esorn.asp.) for registered sex offenders two ways: by the name of the sex offender or by an address. To find a sex offender by their name, type it in the search box. To find the sex offenders in a specific location, type in an address, which will list all offenders in a one mile radius.
When searching under the 43210 university ZIP code, six registered offenders come up, including the three graduate students. The number of registered sex offenders varies when searching under any other off campus address or ZIP code. For example, when searching under ZIP code 43201, about half a mile from campus, 66 registered sex offenders are returned.
Amanda Dolasinski can be reached at [email protected].
