Being a sex offender is perfectly okay and doesn’t violate the constitution of the Associated Students at Riverside City College, according to a statement quoted in The Indian Express

The Indian Express reports, via the Associated Press:

When flyers appeared at Riverside City College this week saying the student body president is a sex offender, students thought it was a cruel prank. They were stunned when they learned it’s true.

Doug Robert Figueroa, 40, who was elected to a one-year term at the California college in May, pleaded guilty in 2005 to kidnapping and lewd and lascivious acts with a boy under 14, the Riverside Press Enterprise newspaper reported Wednesday. His five-year prison term was suspended, and he’s serving 10 years’ probation.

Figueroa told the newspaper in an e-mail that he has not tried to hide his past.

Why administration didn’t step in when Figueroa was running for student body president is beyond me. Maybe they just didn’t want to, but they definitely knew about Figueroa’s criminal background. According to the statement quoted in the Express, administration had asked Figueroa “not to engage in activities that violate his probation,” so he stayed away from Halloween and Easter celebrations on campus.

Figueroa said that the school believes in rehab and that he’s dedicated to changing his life.

This article appears in Apr 4-10, 2013.

3 replies on “Riverside City College’s Student Body President Is A Sex Offender, and People Are Surprisingly Cool About It”

  1. I can’t find the part in The Indian Express that says “being a sex offender is
    perfectly OK”

  2. While if I were in charge of the college I may not think it a wonderful idea to have someone with this sort of criminal record be the head of the student association, I agree very much with the comment before me: can’t find the part where anyone says it’s perfectly okay to be a sex offender. Casanova has misrepresented the event here. Just because someone did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean giving them opportunities to change is equivalent to justifying their criminal behavior. I don’t know how we ought to rehabilitate sex offenders, but permanent exile is probably not the best way.

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