Mayor backs sex offender on kid-camp plan
LITTLEROCK — A convicted child molester listed on the Megan’s Law sex-offender registry is helping plan a youth sports camp at Jackie Robinson Park for the Living Stone Cathedral of Worship, with the support of the church’s leader, Bishop Henry Hearns, the mayor of Lancaster.
Maurice Wyre is listed on the registry for continuous sexual abuse of a child.
He underwent 90 days of psychiatric evaluation after pleading no contest to molestation — a lesser charge — in 1995 and served five years’ probation, which would have ended in 2000.
The 42-year-old former athlete and scion of a locally renowned sports family will not coach or be a counselor at the camp, which starts Monday and runs for a week, according to Hearns. The mayor and clergyman said he is aware of Wyre’s criminal record but that he is unwilling to cast the man out.
“He does not do anything that has anything to do with the kids, except for planning, on paper, with adults,” Hearns told the Valley Press.
The camp, Hearns said, will teach sports and character development to children ages 12 to 18.
About two months ago, Wyre applied to run a summer youth camp at Littlerock High School, with the backing of a local church.
People at the 2,400-student high school east of Palmdale know of Wyre and his family, a vice principal said. School officials were also aware of Wyre’s background as a sex offender.
A campus administrator quickly found Wyre’s name listed on the sex-offender registry.
Littlerock High gets “hundreds of requests” to use its facilities, said Vice Principal Peter Getz, who oversees the activities office.
“Anybody can turn in a request to use a facility,” Getz said. “Of course, my office declined (Wyre’s application) for obvious reasons.”
Getz personally told Wyre the reason that he couldn’t have access to school facilities to run a youth-oriented program, and he said that Wyre understood the school’s position.
Wyre is not permitted on the campus, the vice principal added. “A lot of people know him and know his history,” Getz said.
Wyre refused to comment when reached on his cell phone Saturday. “If you guys are trying to come up with a Megan’s Law story, you do what you’ve got to do, but I’m not going to comment on it,” he said.
The Littlerock High administrator and Wyre last spoke about six weeks ago.
“I never heard another word after that,” Getz said. “In the two years I’ve been sitting in that chair, his name’s only crossed my desk one time.”
Getz said he could not remember what church Wyre said he was representing, and the vice principal’s secretary was unable to locate the original application.
Hearns said he did not send Wyre as an emissary to Littlerock High, and he did not know what church the registered offender represented in seeking to establish a youth program with Littlerock High School as facility support.
“We let him help us to think things out, but he doesn’t bother anything,” Hearns said of Wyre, who is a member of Living Stone Cathedral of Worship.
“I’m not going to throw the man out and cut his head off because he did that. He needs to be a senior part of our church and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Hearns’ support for the Megan’s Law registered offender’s involvement in planning a character development course for youth is at odds with the mayor and clergyman’s career history as an advocate for a socially conservative religious, moral and legal outlook.
In the early 1990s, as a member of the Lancaster City Council, Hearns helped push through a city ordinance restricting adult-oriented businesses. The law earned Lancaster the moniker of “The City That Banned Sex” in national media coverage.
Hearns more recently spoke out against porn channels offered through a local cable TV company, saying he feared children might access illicit videos.
Hearns is a beneficiary of the political support and patronage of state Sen. George Runner, R-Lancaster, and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster.
The husband-and-wife legislative team also are prominent in socially conservative politics as leaders at Desert Christian Schools, which they founded.
They also are the chief architects and proponents — along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — of the “Jessica’s Law” ballot initiative, which, if passed by voters in November, would be the nation’s toughest sex-offender and child-molester law.
Jessica’s Law would prohibit sex offenders from living near schools or parks, and it would require permanent electronic monitoring of serious perpetrators. The law would add stiffer prison terms as well.
Jessica’s Law would not affect Wyre, since it is not retroactive. It is aimed at sexual offenders who target children, a category with an extraordinarily high occurrence of repeat offenses. Under the law, offenders convicted of offenses such as those for which Wyre is listed would likely be eligible for re-arrest merely by turning up on a school campus.
Apprised that a Megan’s Law offender is participating in a youth-oriented program, Assemblywoman Runner said, “I wouldn’t send my child or grandchild anywhere a registered sex offender was involved.”
“I’m sure Bishop Hearns believes people can change, and I believe that as well,” she continued. “I don’t want to put anybody — adult or child — in that situation.”
Megan’s Law was inspired by the case of 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a known child molester who moved across the street from the family. The Kanka family fought to have local communities warned about sex offenders in the area. The New Jersey legislature passed Megan’s Law in 1994.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed Megan’s Law as an amendment to the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children’s Act. It required every state to develop some procedure for notifying the public when a sex offender is released into their community. Different states have different procedures for making the required disclosures.
Sharon Runner’s husband, state Senator George Runner, who has also served as a mayor of Lancaster, called the decision to allow a Megan’s Law offender to participate with the planning of a youth camp a case of “poor judgment.”
“I believe that once an individual has committed that kind of a crime, the last place we want them is in any kind of activity with children.
“It seems to me it’s pretty hard to justify any kind of activity that could lead to proximity or a relationship with children.”
Both Runners said Hearns has a “big heart.” Hearns also is a supporter of the “Jessica’s Law” initiative.
“I’m sure that Henry feels confident that there isn’t any danger to children,” George Runner said, Even without direct access to children, placing a Megan’s Law offender in a planning capacity in a youth program is problematic, George Runner observed.
“The problem is going to be one of perception and of concern,” the state senator said.
George Runner called Hearns “a loving, kind man who wants to help people,” but added, “I don’t think Henry necessarily thought through the consequences and how people would react to it.”
Sen. Runner said current law requiring sex offenders to register with the Megan’s Law online database doesn’t prevent a former child molester from planning a day camp or having some advisory capacity with a youth program.
“There’s nothing that keeps an individual from being the coach of a soccer team as a registered sex offender,” Sen. Runner said.
Many youth programs conduct their own diligence, and usually, groups such as the Boy Scouts of America and Big Brothers take their own inventory and make their own decisions who may or may not work within their organizations.
As for Hearns’ decision to let Wyre help plan his camp, Runner said: “There’s no law against this. If it’s all out in the open and people are accepting of this, then it’s up to those families involved.”
He added, “It just would not be a judgment I would make.”
Table of contents for The Mayor and the Molestor
- Mayor backs sex offender on kid-camp plan
- Mayor Henry Hearns offers mea culpa