Yeah...IDK on this one

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,
My husband and I have a 7-year-old daughter. We are friends with another family who have a child the same age. They are a nice couple. The husband is not very talkative but never gave me any odd vibe. A while ago I was trying to find the number for their home business and when I searched his name the sex offender registry came up! My husband talked to him, he was very upset and said when he was 18 years old he had a 14-year-old girlfriend and the parents reported him when they found out they were having sex. I have no reason to doubt this, but I can’t verify it because the offense occurred in another state that does not post details online. My concern is that we have already hosted their daughter for a sleepover, and now my daughter is asking when she can go over there. Before I knew this information I had no qualms about the family, but now that I know I feel obligated to “do something.” What should I do?

—Stumped

AuntFlo

I don't like it.  I feel like she can say "no thank you" to overnight invitations without any bad feelings.  And that goes for allowing daughter to sleep over with anyone, whether their parents are on the registry or not.  As far as explaining to the daughter - - at age 7, mom can just say "because I said so".

IrishPirate60

Keep in mind that there are many crimes that put people on the sex offender registry. Most of them are not child molestation. Aside from that, I'd say no to overnights anyway.

Heffalump

1.  18 y.o. having sex with a 14 y.o. girlfriend isn't sexual assault, but it doesn't feel like NBD to me, either.  I don't think it makes him a pedophile, but it's squicky.

2.  Someone on Slate said that this excuse is the "just one beer with dinner, officer, I swear" of the sex offender registry.  I agree with @IrishPirate60 that not everyone on the registry is a rapist or child molester...but some are.  And since she mentions that there is no info available to corroborate his story, I would be very, very careful here.  No one ever says "Oh, that...yeah, I exposed myself to kids on the playground," it's always some unfortunate misunderstanding.  At the very least, I would have a lot of follow up questions; I might even be crazy enough to use one of those criminal record search companies, if the kid were close with mine and I foresaw her spending a lot of time at Friend's house and/or around the dad.

3.  "Never gave me any odd vibe: " yeah, well the guy who got arrested here never gave me any odd vibe, either, and here we are.  [No word on brownies yet, @hmonkey, but we are having a company-wide meeting on Monday and I assume that will be the main topic.]

AuntFlo

Brownies or the arrest?

hmonkey

brownies, duh.

Heffalump

AuntFlo said:

Brownies or the arrest?

"that" = brownies

The people want their brownies!

IrishPirate60

Somewhat related: "Of course, the big one to check is if the person appears in a sex offender database. For that, you can look in the Department of Justice's Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website. "

GBCK

I trust my "hinky meter" as a reason to be suspicious around people...but I don't trust the absence of a ping on that radar to mean innocence (people who are truly evil can slide in under that)

I'd be calling in a favor/finding a way to make google magic/pay for some info  if the girls were close enough that I thought this was going to nag at me for time.

(also, as I believe I've mentioned before, if you do a search for all offenders in a 10 mile radius, it helps if the county jail/halfway house isn't within that 10 mile radius.  My screen always shows an alarming number of creeps, because their last known address was in town at the jail/courthouse/etc.  I've learned to not hyperventalite while checking )