County officials fired the director of the Wayne County (Mich.) Regional Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped February 13 after learning that he had served 60 days in the Oakland County Jail in 2001 for having sexual relations with a 15-year-old. The Detroit News reported February 18 that Fred Howkins, 55, did the time while on a county-approved family leave with pay.
The newspaper said that police were not required to notify the library of Howkins’s status as a sex offender, and he did not report it himself. “Deliberate action was taken upon discovering the criminal activities and incarceration,” said Sharon Banks, press secretary for the Wayne County Executive’s Office. “A full investigation is . . . underway.” In order to qualify for the paid leave from November 2001 to August 2002, Howkins had to provide a doctor’s statement and other necessary paperwork to prove that he was ill.
A resident of Rochester Hills in Oakland County, Howkins claimed the boy he met on the Internet gave his age as 16—the legal age of consent in Michigan—but prosecuting attorney Mary Larkin said he should have seen the warning flags that the boy was underage, since he was just starting to learn to drive and had to sneak out of his house to meet. The boy’s mother discovered e-mails to Howkins on her son’s computer and reported them to investigators. Following his jail term, Howkins spent 123 days on an electronic tether and was ordered not to have contact with the boy, his family, or any children under 18 without a parent or guardian present.
Posted February 20, 2004.