ORLANDO, Fla. — 9 Investigates a problem with a system that is supposed to protect your families from sexual predators.
Eyewitness News started asking questions last year after we exposed two probation officers who allegedly failed to keep a child rapist from visiting a kid's park in Seminole County dozens of times.
Channel 9’s Tim Barber asked state officials if the system needs to be replaced.
But first Barber found André Garden and his kids playing on the same basketball court Nijhir Lomax played on.
But Lomax was banned from Fort Mellon Park because the 21-year-old was convicted of raping a girl younger than 12.
“The system failed,” Andre Garden told Barber.
Last year, a Florida Department of Corrections investigation found two probation officers did fail to monitor Lomax with his ankle monitor. Both officers resigned.
Raw: Sexual predator tracking system
During 2014, thousands of probation violations were documented across central Florida, including 5,553 in Seminole and Brevard and 5,872 violations in Orange and Osceola, according to clerks of court records.
Barber asked the state how many sexual offenders and predators either cut off their monitors or entered a banned area like Lomax did, but officials said they don't track that information.
Barber did find out that the map that probation officers monitor shows where criminals have been, but the employees must zoom into those GPS points to see if they are a school, a day care or a park.
The officers in Lomax's case allegedly failed to do that, so he was able to go to the park 42 times without anyone noticing.
“That is not a system obviously, that is not a system," said Garden.
The secretary of the state Department of Corrections canceled our interview, so we talked to state Rep. Jason Brodeur, R-Sanford.
Fort Mellon Park is in Brodeur’s district.
“Does this system really protect the families of central Florida?” Barber asked him.
“I think that when utilized correctly when we have personnel on the state side that are looking at the technology that is available right now, that they should feel as though they are being protected,” Brodeur said.
DOC officials also said technology changes quickly, even though the contract with the company that provides the ankle monitors is worth $8.5 million.
Garden said something needs to improve to protect him and his kids.
“Once, twice, three times, but 42 times?” said Garden, referring to the number of times authorities eventually discovered that Lomax, a registered sexual predator, had visited the park without being noticed by the probation officers.
Nijhir Lomax was in court this morning where a Seminole County judge set his violation of probation trial for Wednesday.
Channel 9 will be following his case as it progresses through the court system.
WFTV
