| Molester Works With Kids, Arrested Last Modified: 3/30/2008 11:11:01 AM
A convicted sex offender was able to hide his past and get an internship in a medical clinic in DeKalb County treating children. Now he is accused of molesting a child at that clinic.
The U. S. Marshal in Atlanta told 11Alive News Saturday that is it "pathetic" that the people at the state level who are supposed to be tracking the sex offender, enforcing state and federal laws, apparently failed to do just that.
The sex offender is 45 year old Byron Lionel Brown.
Brown was working as an intern at the Stone Mountain Immediate Care Clinic on North Hairston Road. DeKalb County police say that, on Wednesday, Brown was able to get an eleven year old patient alone with him.
According to police, Brown fondled the boy. The boy later told his mother. She called police.
Police interviewed Brown and, they say, he told them he was convicted in 2000, in Maryland, of child molestation, and was a registered sex offender.
Brown later moved to North Carolina and in 2002 registered as a sex offender there, in a suburb of Charlotte –- specifically, just across the state line in Fort Mill, SC.
Brown moved to Georgia seven months ago, but, police say, he never registered as a sex offender in Georgia.
Atlanta's Everest Institute, formerly Georgia Medical Institute, arranged an internship for Brown at the clinic in Stone Mountain, whose patients include children. And that's where Brown was when he was accused of molesting another child.
Under both Georgia law and Federal law, Brown was supposed to register as a sex offender when he moved to Georgia.
The U. S. Marshal now has additional powers to hunt down and arrest sex offenders when they leave one state, where they are registered, and fail to register in their new residence in another state.
But Marshal Richard Mecum said Saturday he can't arrest a fugitive sex offender if the state where the offender was registered never tells the Marshal's Office or anyone else that the offender has disappeared.
"They can disappear, and no one has any capability of tracking them. It's pathetic. Can we hunt 'em down? Yeah. But we have to know that they're missing."
North Carolina's on-line sex offender registry shows that the last time anyone there verified Byron Brown's address was April 30, 2007. There is nothing in the records to indicate that North Carolina ever knew Brown had moved away.
And even though Brown was originally convicted of child molestation in Maryland, there is no record of him anywhere in Maryland's on-line sex offender registry, including in the section that is supposed to track offenders after they leave Maryland.
Officials in North Carolina and Maryland were not available Saturday to explain what happened in Brown's case.
Last month in Atlanta, Mecum's office highlighted the potential effectiveness, and importance, of the new federal law aimed at tracking down fugitive sex offenders. There are tens of thousands of them at any given time across the United States.
"Anytime you have somebody with an extensive criminal history, involving convictions for sex offenses, to me, that's scary" when that person disappears, Deputy U. S. Marshal Jeremy Smith said then. And Mecum underscored the point.
"It's going to be really tough out there on individuals who do not, who do not, register" when they move from state to state, Mecum said.
Mecum described last month how his office had been able to catch a fugitive sex offender who had slipped into Georgia. His deputies used the provisions of the new federal law, named the "Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act."
The offender, Jimmy Joel Beasley, had moved to Georgia from Mississippi. Beasley was on Mississippi's sex offender registry. But Beasley never registered when he moved to Georgia.
Beasley went to work as a carny, around children, including in carnivals in DeKalb County.
But Mississippi had been keeping close tabs on Beasley, and as soon as state officials realized he'd moved away, they promptly reported Beasley missing. That empowered the U. S. Marshals, and the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, to work across state lines to find him and bring him in, which they did.
Beasley pleaded guilty last month to failing to register in Georgia as a sex offender. He faces up to ten years in federal prison under the new federal law. He will be sentenced in September.
"Beasley is a prime example of the type of offender this law was designed to protect the public from," Mecum said then.
He said it again, Saturday, about Byron Brown.
11Alive News was not able to contact anyone with Atlanta's Everest Institute on Saturday about any background checks the Institute conducted of Brown.
The clinic in Stone Mountain is conducting its own investigation of the boy's complaint.
According to DeKalb County police, Brown told investigators he has also worked at another clinic in Metro Atlanta, and has served as a youth pastor at a church in the area.
DeKalb County police are asking anyone whose children had contact with Brown to notify police if they suspect Brown victimized their children.
At a hearing Friday night, a DeKalb County magistrate court judge set Brown's bond at $150,000. Brown's next court date was scheduled for April 14.
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