The case of a man who will be sentenced for molesting a child at a Westminster day care center sparked a change in one law and shows the need for another law, some state lawmakers said Monday.
Del. Susan Krebs, R-Carroll County, closed a loophole in a law requiring background checks on child care employees after the Carroll County Department of Social Services brought the oversight to her attention in the aftermath of the James A. Gregory case.
Gregory, a convicted child sex offender, was hired five years ago to work at the Reasons and Rainbows day care center in Westminster and now awaits sentencing on charges that he molested a 3-year-old girl there.
“If this check had been done appropriately, [Gregory] never would have been working at a day care center,” Krebs said.
Before the updated law?s implementation last year, the state child care office reviewed the background checks of family care providers, but not of all the child care center employees.
However, Krebs and Del. Anthony O?Donnell, R-Calvert and St. Mary?s counties, said the sentences for child sex offenders are not harsh enough, as in the Gregory case.
Gregory is expected to get three years in prison and five years? probation.
“This is a very, very light sentence,” Krebs said.
Jessica?s Law, which would require mandatory minimum 25-year sentences for offenders who sexually abuse children 12 and younger, failed to pass the General Assembly this year.
“The average sentence for this class of offenders in Maryland is 12 to 18 months, and that?s pitiful,” said O?Donnell, the bill?s sponsor.
He plans to introduce the bill again next year.
Jessica?s Law, a nationwide movement to enact mandatory prison sentences for pedophiles, is named after Jessica Lunsford, a 9-year-old Florida girl who was molested and murdered last year by a repeat sexual offender.
