The time I found a sex offender

Last week a woman who wished to remain anonymous contacted me and said there was a sex offender working at WSU.

I was skeptical.

Turned out she was right though. Geoff Lee Keller taught American Social Dance at WSU for a year. He was convicted of lewd conduct with a minor under the age of 16 in 2006.

The Idaho law he broke says "lewd conduct with a minor under 16" can be anything as serious as full on sexual intercourse, oral or sodomy or something as simple as touching with the intention of gratifying lust or sexual desire.

Of the three levels of sexual offender Keller is listed as the lowest, compliant. Meaning the state considers him to be at a relatively low risk of offending again.

Upon uncovering these facts I found myself in a moral dilemma. Should I write and run a story that will surely bring harm to a man's reputation even though he no longer works at the university?

I thought about that for a long time.

If he had still been working at WSU my decision would have been simple. The community has a right to know if a sexual offender is in their midst even if the convict was found guilty of the most minor sexual crime.

But he wasn't still working at WSU. So why run the story?

In the end I decided that even though Keller doesn't still work here the community has the right to know that the university's background check policy allows sexual offenders to be hired.

Why? Because background checks are only done upon a manager's request or when the applicant will be working with children.

To me the university's background check policy is the real story here and the fact that we hired a sex offender without knowing it only highlights the newsworthiness of the issue.