Mention the phrase “sex offender,” and many parents think of a suspicious man trying to give a child candy.

“They’re looking for the stranger in the truck pulling up at the curb,” Assistant Dist. Atty. David Melton said.

But a case that ended this week in District Court serves as a reminder that, in most sex crimes, the victim knows the offender. The case of John T. Whitehead also illustrates the fine line between innocent contact with children and sexual misconduct – and that it’s possible for people to cross the line under parents’ noses.

Whitehead, 30, a former resident of Westgate Apartments, 4641 W. Sixth St., was sentenced Thursday to two years’ probation for one count of aggravated indecent solicitation of a child. Prosecutors initially charged him with three counts of child molesting, alleging that he repeatedly sought out physical contact with children in the complex – wrestling them, asking them to go down the slide at the playground, putting them on his shoulders – as a way to arouse himself. He also kept thousands of pictures of children cut out of catalogs and newspapers.

The case was different from other sex crimes involving children, prosecutors said, because Whitehead wasn’t charged with touching children inappropriately or having them touch him. He would have contact with the children in broad daylight, often with others nearby at the complex’s playground, then go home and gratify himself.

Danette Seymour, a former resident of Westgate Apartments, says the apartments' management brushed aside her concerns about John T. Whitehead, whose case involving aggravated indecent solicitation of a child ended this week in District Court.

“There’s a line, and he was trying not to go over that line,” Melton said. “We thought he did.”

Sense of ‘safety’

The Westgate Apartment complex, opened in the mid-1990s, is federally designated housing for people with lower incomes. More than half the residents have some kind of assistance, according to one resident’s estimate.

The fact that anyone at the six-building complex allowed their children to play with a 30-year-old man may seem strange. But former tenant Danette Seymour said many residents were single mothers like her who were grateful to have someone who would supervise their children in the communal playground for short periods of time.

“They’d say, ‘Here’s this nice guy, he’s going to give me a 20-minute break or whatever,'” she said. “You have the sense of community safety. The kids have no obvious concerns that John did this or John did that. You didn’t see anything or hear anything.”

Whitehead has a learning disability and difficulty controlling emotional outbursts, according to courtroom testimony, but he was seen as a community leader in the complex. He was second-in-charge of the residents’ association, and he often patrolled the grounds at night to make sure residents were following the rules.

“He’d report people for various policy violations,” prosecutor Melton said. “He was kind of the eyes and ears of the management. : He just kind of insinuated himself into that community. The kids loved him. The parents liked the fact that he would take care of their kids and they didn’t have to pay him.”

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Management dispute

In 1999, a group of single mothers including Seymour came forward and filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alleging that the complex’s management was discriminating against them by giving them eviction notices for alleged rules violations. Seymour said Whitehead was actively involved in that matter because he was reporting the alleged rules violations to management.

Seymour and the mothers of two victims who spoke in court this week alleged that the complex’s management brushed their concerns about Whitehead aside.

They said that when Whitehead would become angry about something he would make threats. But Seymour said the management’s response was that Whitehead was harmless and, because of his good standing with the complex’s management, people who didn’t like him had two choices: live with him, or move out.

“Not everybody’s in a position to move,” she said.

The complex’s manager did not return a phone call Friday seeking comment.

Friend speaks out

Complex resident Jan Pool, the head of the residents’ association and a friend of Whitehead’s for the past year, has a different view from Seymour’s. She said Whitehead was an asset to the community – helping plan events such as a community bingo and Bible study.

He cleaned, he lifted heavy items, changed high light bulbs, and cooked for a blind woman, she said. Pool said that when Whitehead made threats, it was because he had been deliberately provoked by children in the complex, and she accused the mother of one of the victims of not supervising her children enough.

Pool said that, knowing Whitehead’s mental limitations, she doubted that he had the intent to seek out contact with the kids for deliberate sexual gratification.

“I believe it was something that was an immature reflex in an immature man,” she said. “I’m just grateful that he knew to walk away from it, and what he did in his own home, he did in his own home.

“This is an adult male with a child’s mind,” she said. “You would have to be in John’s mind to know if that was a purposeful, thought-through action or whether he was just playing on the playground with other kids his mental age.”

But prosecutor David Melton said, “He admitted in court that he knew it was wrong. He would seek these people out for his sexual gratification.”

Prosecutors alleged there were three child victims in the case, all of whom lived at the complex between 2001 and 2005.

“We think that he had access to more kids than that,” Melton said. “Those were the only ones we could identify as victims. Some of the kids had moved away. In some cases, the parents didn’t want the kids talking to the officers.”

Whitehead will be ordered to undergo sexual-offender treatment as part of his probation and will have to register as a sex offender.