Daycare Owner 'At Wit's End' Over Convicted Rapist Working Next Door

A Creek County daycare is worried about a new employee at a nearby business.

The man is a registered sex offender and the daycare does not want him to work so close to the kids.

But is he violating the law?

The daycare owner says she's been at her wit's end since finding out about the man's past.

The law said he can work next door as long as that's all he does.

Sharon Wynn has owned Nana's Arms daycare in Mounds for a decade.

The kids she cares for mean the world to her.

"Their parents gave birth to them but they're my kids," Wynn said.

But now she's worried about a man who yesterday was hired to work at a business less than 2000 feet from her daycare.

"I don't know where else to turn, don't know what else to do, but I want him gone," Wynn said.

The 27-year old man is a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty to lewd acts with a 12-year-old girl.

We're not reporting his name or the business who employed him, because the law has not been broken.

But his employment has the parents worried about their children's safety.

"It's almost like having a child and saying, 'Here's a jar of candy that you've had before, but don't touch it,'" parent Lesley Engle said.

The law says that in cases like this, since the victim was under 13 years old, the man is not allowed to loiter or hang out at his place of employment.

But he is allowed to work there, even though it's less than 2000 feet from where children are present.

"So he has more rights as a sex offender than these babies do for protection?" Wynn said.

Wynn said her focus is to keep the kids safe and work to change the law. She hopes lawmakers look at her situation and pass tougher laws that restrict where registered sex offenders can work.

"I'll change it," Wynn said. "I'll start fighting."

The owner of the business released a statement saying, "If you yourself have not sinned, by all means cast the first stone. But as for me and my crew we operate under forgiveness and grace."

Wynn has asked the business owner to transfer the man to another store he owns in town but said he refused.

Her kids' parents say, while they would hate to do it, if the man continues to work there, they'll take their children somewhere else.

"I love Nana's Arms, and Nana is awesome with the kids but, as a parent, you just can't let that happen," Engle said.

The man was sentenced in April to a three-year suspended sentence.

He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.