DAILY BREEZE ARTICLE

Originally published Saturday, October 13, 2007

Authorities arrest sex offender at school

Man violated a new law that bans convicted felons from places where children congregate in Westchester and Manhattan Beach.

By Denise Nix

Staff Writer

While sex offender Richard Gibbons was under police surveillance for about six hours this week, he drove to about a dozen elementary schools, including two in the South Bay.  He usually parked his car outside the campuses and stayed inside, authorities said. But on Tuesday, when he allegedly parked his car in the school lot at Cowan Elementary School in Westchester, Gibbons violated a new state law.

The Sex Offender Control and Containment Act, enacted last year, makes it a misdemeanor for anyone required to register as a sex offender to go onto school grounds without reason and written permission. The law also bans sex offenders from parks and other places where children congregate.

Gibbons, 54, was arrested later that day outside Pacific Elementary School in Manhattan Beach, where he was allegedly masturbating inside his parked car.

Gibbons was charged with a misdemeanor for going onto the Westchester campus and another for engaging in lewd conduct in a public place.

Deputy District Attorney Christine Von Helmolt of the Torrance sex crimes unit said Gibbons displayed the type of behavior the new law was designed to curtail.

Before the law took effect, sex offenders could go onto school campuses - unless they had been specifically ordered to stay away.  Von Helmolt said the legislation closed a gap that left children vulnerable to predators.

"He is not on probation or parole, and his being on school grounds would have been perfectly fine in the eyes of the law," Von Helmolt said.

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate Bill 1128, penned by Sen. Elaine Alquist, D Santa Clara, and Sen. Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno, he said it would give law enforcement better tools to catch and convict high-risk sex offenders.

Other provisions of the law set the prison term for raping a child at 25 years to life and toughened penalties for possession of child pornography and Internet predators.

Gibbons, who is being held on $50,000 bail, pleaded not guilty in Torrance Superior Court on Thursday. He returns to court Oct. 25.  He faces a maximum year in county jail if convicted.

Gibbons was placed under surveillance by the Santa Monica Police Department.

According to a police bulletin, Gibbons had been seen repeatedly since 2004 loitering around several areas of Santa Monica, including Clover Park.

Additionally, he was spotted recently hanging around a residence in the 1100 block of Stanford Street in Santa Monica where three girls live, the police said.

When confronted by neighbors, Gibbons fled in his 1983 red Volvo.

Although a police spokesman was not available, it would seem officers placed Gibbons under surveillance as a result of that incident.

The police bulletin states that Gibbons is "drawn to elementary school-age children, particularly girls."

It is not known what other schools he drove to while under surveillance.

Gibbons, who listed his residence as Culver City on the state's sex offender database, was ordered to register after he was convicted of molesting a 9-year-old girl in 2002, Von Helmolt said.

Details about that crime were not available.

Gibbons also has a prior conviction and served a prison sentence for sexually assaulting a girl in Florida sometime in the 1980s, Von Helmolt added.