Judge to determine fate in sex offender case

After months of waiting and wondering, a local mother’s glimpse of justice for her daughter has been put on hold.

Teresa Mossman, of Deering, accompanied her 12-year-old daughter to the Butler County Common Pleas Court at the beginning of the month to testify against a registered sex offender they say made contact with the young girl through Facebook.

However when they arrived, they learned the trial was cancelled.

Mossman’s daughter was subpoenaed to testify against Aaron M. Frye, 28, of Hamilton, who was arrested on Sept. 28 and charged with failure to provide the Butler County Sheriff’s Office with an e-mail address. That unregistered e-mail address was allegedly used to contact young girls, including Mossman’s daughter, said Jennifer McElfresh, assistant prosecuting attorney for Butler County.

McElfresh, who is in the child assault division of the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, said Frye had been charged with various offenses involving young girls in 2003.

Mossman said her daughter received 10 to 12 private messages via Facebook from Frye on Aug. 31 asking where she lived, what school she attended and if they could be friends. Mossman said that even though her daughter did not accept Frye’s friend request, he still had access to her list of friends. She also said that one message asked her daughter to call him and gave a phone number.

“Mr. Frye ended up pleading no contest to the charge and right now the judge has it under advisement to determine whether or not he’s going to find him guilty as a result of the no contest plea,” said McElfresh.

McElfresh said Frye’s attorney argued that the sex offender law in question cannot be applied retroactively to Frye because it went into effect after he was already classified under the old law.

“Under the old law, sex offenders were not required to register their email addresses,” McElfresh said. “That is something that went into effect with the Adam Walsh Act. Mr. Frye was classified as a sexual predator prior to that law going into effect.”

Mossman said she would help McElfresh in anyway to ensure that Frye is brough to justice.

“I told her I’d be more than happy to write a letter and let her know just how much it has affected my daughter and myself,” she said. “If I find out that the judge gives him a slap on the hand and says time served, I’m going to be upset. I would have rather gone to trial to make sure he goes to jail for a while. Obviously he’s a chronic sex offender and he’s not going to change. He doesn’t need to be out on the streets with our kids.”

Mossman said her daughter, who was scared at the thought of facing Frye in court, is glad she didn’t have to go through trial.

“I really don’t think that she can see the whole picture, on how much one man can affect a community, obviously part of a state,” Mossman said. “I really don’t think that she has any idea. All that she knows was that some freak was trying to get a hold of her and her friends, and she’s just glad that she doesn’t have to go face him.”

Mossman also said her daughter is not, however, afraid of the Internet and also feels that children should not be shielded from the Internet, but taught how to be responsible.

“When you teach a kid to cross the street, you teach them to look both ways. And you pray to God they use that knowledge when they go somewhere,” she said. “Instead of trying to stop them from doing these things, teach them how to do it right. Internet and computer usage is such a part of lives now and it’s not going away.”