Registered sex offender sues Stafford School Board for banning him from meetings

May 04--A Stafford County resident is suing the county's School Board over a no-trespassing notice that effectively prohibits him from attending the board's meetings because he is a registered sex offender.

Melvin Allen filed a federal lawsuit this month claiming that the action violates his constitutional right to participate in public meetings. He is seeking unspecified damages.

Allen received the notice barring him from "School Board-owned property" on May 3, 2016, presumably because he picked up his grandson from Winding Creek Elementary School the previous month, according to the lawsuit. State law prohibits sex offenders from entering a public school during school hours, but the suit claims that Winding Creek employees called Allen to ask him to pick up his grandson because "the boy was ill and ... it was an emergency."

"The school authorities made this call despite knowing that Mr. Allen was forbidden from entering a school campus during school hours, as they deemed it a medical emergency," the lawsuit states. It also states that Allen reasonably concluded he had a legal right and moral obligation to get his grandson.

Allen picked up his grandson without incident, but would be arrested the following month for attending a School Board meeting in violation of the no-trespassing notice, the suit claims. The complaint calls the notice unconstitutional and "overbroad," and says Allen never violated state law because the School Board meets in an administrative complex, not a school.

An online background report states that Allen received a misdemeanor trespassing charge and a felony charge for allegedly violating a state law prohibiting sex offenders near playgrounds. Both charges were dropped and later expunged from Allen's record, the suit states.

Christina Mancini, a criminal justice professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the lawsuit raises a "great legal question." She noted that 85 percent of sex offenders will be released from prison and said that shunning them from civic engagement could increase recidivism rates.

"I'm very curious how the courts will interpret it, because it will have ripple effects," she said. "The intent of the law is, of course, to protect the public and children, but it doesn't seem like any of those people would be at risk" by letting Allen attend School Board meetings.

Allen was convicted of attempting to take indecent liberties with children, according to the Virginia Sex Offender Registry. The lawsuit states that he was sentenced to 30 days in jail because of "activity in an online chatroom."

The lawsuit describes the sequence of events that led to his trespassing arrest.

Several days after he picked up his grandson from Winding Creek, Deputy C.R. Burgess called Allen to "gently" remind him of the state law barring sex offenders from schools, but said she did not intend to press charges because the school asked him to come, the suit claims. Allen subsequently received the no-trespassing notice, which the suit says "effectively punished [him] for having done what he had been expressly requested to do by school officials."

Allen, who regularly attended School Board meetings as a Stafford NAACP representative, went to a meeting May 24, 2016, to express concern about racial disparities in school discipline, the suit states. But before he could address the School Board, a deputy asked him to go to a foyer outside of the meeting room.

He entered the foyer and Deputy Burgess "began shouting at him that he could not be at the School Board meeting because he was a sex offender," according to the lawsuit. Allen replied that he had a right to be there, but Burgess threatened to arrest him if he did not leave immediately.

The deputy's shouting could be heard from the meeting room, according to the suit.

"Deeply humiliated and frustrated, Mr. Allen left the meeting so as not to cause a scene," the lawsuit states.

Burgess, who the suit also lists as a defendant, swore out arrest warrants against Allen several days later. The other defendants include schools security Director Gregory Martin, who signed the no-trespassing order, and Director of Administrative and Legal Service Daryl Nelson.

Alexandria attorney Victor Glasberg, who represents Allen, said the deputy cited his client's status as a sex offender, not the no-trespassing notice, when she asked him to leave the School Board meeting.

"Apart from being ridiculously unfair ... it's not legally tenable," Glasberg said. He said his client tried to settle the matter out of court, but the defendants refused.

A schools spokeswoman declined to comment.

In Story News WidgetC2F278094FACCEA612EE51C5639E1537subscribehttp://www.fredericksburg.com/newslettershttp://www.fredericksburg.com/newsletters

Get the headlines newsletter in your inbox each day with the top stories.

htmlCancelSubscribe

___

(c)2018 The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.)

Visit The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.) at www.fredericksburg.com/flshome

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.