OKC molester removed from treatment, sent to prison

[Ed: One of the myriad bizarre implications flowing from residency restriction laws]

OKLAHOMA CITY — A convicted child molester has been sent to prison after a judge learned the treatment center where he was living was located near a city park.

District Judge Virgil C. Black on Friday ordered 58-year-old Claude Stanley Fontenot be removed from the Avalon Correctional Services' Carver Center in south Oklahoma City and sent to prison. Fontenot has been at the center since being sentenced Oct. 15 on two counts of child sexual abuse.

At Friday's hearing, Black said he could no longer allow Fontenot to stay at the center because it violates a state law that prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a park.

The two victims, now teens, were in the courtroom. The girls' mother said she's relieved Fontenot is going to prison.

"That's what we've wanted all along — to see him behind bars," she said.

Attorney Josh Welch said sending his client to prison for three years after he was sentenced to the Carver Center violates the double jeopardy provision of the Constitution.

Welch said he hopes to have Fontenot released within 30 days and keep him out of jail while his case is under review.

Fontenot initially was sentenced to three years at the Carver Center and 17 years of probation and was required to register as a sex offender. The Carver Center, on south May Avenue, is 813 feet from Ted Reynolds Park. District Judge Virgil C. Black said at the time Fontenot was sentenced, no one involved in the case realized the center's proximity to the park.