At least 12 sex offenders worked for Little Rock when the city implemented a policy last month that restricts the positions offenders can hold.

At the time the June 10 policy was put in place, the city said it employed eight sex offenders.

On Monday, Human Resources Director Stacey Witherell and Employment Manager Kathleen Walker said 11 such offenders worked for the city when the policy was put in place. They said two have since been fired and that nine now work for the city in either the Public Works or Fleet departments. Witherell and Walker said they didn't know about some of those offenders when the policy was first implemented.

But Walker's master list of current and previous city-employed sex offenders, given to the newspaper Tuesday after a request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, shows that another registered sex offender, who was a temporary crew worker, was fired a day after the policy took effect.

The new hiring policy bans the employment of Level 3 and 4 offenders and limits Level 1 and 2 offenders to certain positions that require them to work in a group setting and have minimal contact with the public. It also doesn't allow any offender to work at the Little Rock Zoo, in the Animal Services Division or in the Parks and Recreation Department. Previously, the city had no restrictions on the employment of sex offenders, although state law restricts sex offenders from working for police or fire departments.

Walker said in an email late Tuesday that the temporary crew worker's termination was not because of the policy. She did not answer a question Wednesday about why his information wasn't provided to a reporter Monday when it was already included on her master list at that time.

Witherell did respond to that question, saying, "But if we don't know that they exist then how can we tell you? We provided the best information that we had at the time you requested it."

It wasn't the first time city officials gave incomplete responses regarding the new sex-offender policy.

In response to a June 11 Freedom of Information Act request for any emails about the sex-offender policy, both Walker and Witherell said they had no such emails. Public Works Director Jon Honeywell, who oversees the majority of the city-employed sex offenders, also said he didn't have any emails about the policy, nor did any supervisors in his department.

When asked how Walker did months of research to recommend the policy and how it had been implemented without a single email exchange, she provided a March 18 email conversation between her and the Little Rock Police Department detective responsible for monitoring the city's registered sex offenders. That exchange included a handwritten list supplied to Walker that showed she was told about more sex offenders than originally disclosed.

The city's Information Technology Department later combed city servers and supplied numerous emails about the policy to and from the same officials who said there were none.

Witherell said Monday that she thought her department was responsive to the Freedom of Information Act request by providing official memorandums sent notifying the city manager and department heads of the hiring changes.

In addition to the emails showing there were more offenders working for the city, the messages also hinted at issues in the city's felon re-entry program. The program originally hired felons to work on repairing sidewalks, but has been expanded to allow felons to hold other positions.

A May 1 email from Walker said that she sent the first memorandum recommending the new policy in March after "issues" with the program. She said Monday that the email referred to her discovery that the program coordinator had not been running complete criminal and sex-offender background checks on the felon workers, information she said just came out in conversation.

City Manager Bruce Moore has repeatedly said no particular incident sparked the policy change.

Moore said Monday that after learning the full background checks weren't being completed, he asked that the re-entry program applications include a question about the applicant's sex-offender history. He said he then felt that should be implemented citywide, so he had Walker research the new policy.

In addition to the hiring restrictions, the policy mandates the sex-offender registry be checked for every employee upon hire and at the time of promotion or a change in job duties. That had not been done previously.

An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette analysis of the information provided showed that at least two of the 12 employees committed a sexual offense while they worked for the city.

Dale Earl Lester, an equipment operator, worked for the city from 1982 to 2009, when he resigned days before his conviction for second-degree sexual assault. He committed the violation in 2008 while he was a senior foreman for the city. He was rehired in 2012 as a part-time employee and became full time last year.

Herman Wiley, a streets supervisor who has been employed by the city since 1988, was convicted of second-degree sexual assault and sexual indecency with a child in 2010 while he was a city employee.

Moore said city officials weren't aware of Wiley's or Lester's convictions when they occurred. Little Rock Police Chief Stuart Thomas said that any time a city employee is arrested, police notify the worker's department head. Little Rock police arrested Wiley, but Lester's conviction is in Lonoke County.

Only the names of Level 3 and 4 offenders, and those Level 2 offenders who were adults at the time of the crime and whose victims were 14 or younger, are public under state law. Of the 12 offenders who worked for the city before the policy took effect, the names of six are public. Leonard Dickerson and Thomas Lovelady, both Level 3 offenders, were terminated per the policy. Lovelady is appealing that firing.

In addition to Lester and Wiley, there are two remaining city-employed sex offenders whose names are public.

Vincent Terrell Hatchett, a sanitation worker who goes by Jamar Shabazz, was hired in 2009 and convicted of first-degree sexual abuse in 1993. John Ring V, an operations laborer, briefly worked for the city in 1985 and then was hired part time in 2008 and promoted to full time in 2009. He was convicted of incest of a minor under age 16 in 2002.

A section on 07/03/2014