It's every working parent's worst nightmare. You leave your child with a person you trust to cherish and care for them as you would only to find they may have sexually abused your child. That's the horror some California parents faced who sent their children to several different Los Angeles area day care homes.
Last week California officials suspended the licenses of 10 home day care and foster homes after finding that they might also be the residences of convicted sex offenders. In two cases, inspectors found sex offenders living in homes where children were regularly cared for. "In most cases, you have a lady who wants to have day care out of her home, and she can advertise, and people can drop their kids off," Assemblyman Anthony Adams told the New York Times. "But maybe her brother or her husband or her uncle are offenders and living there, too."
Adams and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma had asked for a state audit of day care homes. The investigation showed 49 instances in which the address of a registered sex offender matched that of a day care home. California state licensing laws require day care and foster care providers to submit to a background check and disclose the names of anyone living in the home. State law prohibits sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a school or public park.
Harboring a convicted sex offender in a home where children are present can lead to loss of your home day care license or worse, a criminal charge of child abuse or endangerment. California law states, "any person who commits a lewd or lascivious act on a child under the age of 14 is guilty of a felony punishable in the state prison for 3 to 8 years." Each act constitutes a single charge. Continuous sexual abuse -- engaging in 3 or more acts -- is punishable by 6 to 16 years in state prison. These are serious charges with life-altering penalties that require that you immediately contact an experienced criminal attorney.
