Sex offender arrested after being seen by parent at Edwardsville school carnival

BY BRIAN BRUEGGEMANN
News-Democrat

A parent suspected that a man attending an Edwardsville school carnival might be a registered sex offender. So the parent left the event, found the man's picture on an Internet registry, and called police, officials said Tuesday.

The parent's actions resulted in Madison County prosecutors on Tuesday charging Michael E. Cox, 40, of East Alton, with unlawful presence in a school zone by a sex offender.

Cox was arrested at 8:50 p.m. Tuesday at his residence, and remains jailed on $20,000 bail. The charge is a felony and carries a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

School and law-enforcement authorities said Cox attended the Woodland Elementary School carnival Friday with a girlfriend, who has children there. The parent who recognized Cox as possibly being a registered sex offender approached Cox's girlfriend about the matter, Superintendent Ed Hightower said.

By the time the parent had called police, Cox and his girlfriend had left the carnival.

State law prohibits registered sex offenders from being on or near school grounds. But Hightower said school personnel have no way of knowing whether someone attending a school event is a sex offender.

"This individual understands the rules. He shouldn't have been there," Hightower said.

In February 2006, Cox was sentenced to two years in prison for fondling himself in the presence of a minor at an Alton pool.

[Ed: The "Felony" with which this man is being charged dramatically illustrates the sea change which has turned American jurisprudence on its head in recent years, to wit: Acts committed by those thrown into one group of society are now considered, and prosecuted, as "criminal" while others within society are allowed to freely exercise that act as a right".

We have turned a corner: Beware! ]