Posted on 10/31/2007 3:22:36 PM PDT by GSWarrior
DELTA — A registered sex offender is running for the Delta County Board of Education.
Delta Police Department spokesman Bill Sowell confirmed that school board candidate Dale Haag is registered as a sex offender with his department because of a 1987 conviction in Orange City, Iowa.
Sowell said he did not know the nature of Haag’s conviction for sexual assault except that it occurred in Sioux County, Iowa. Sioux County Sheriff Dan Altena was not available for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Having a previous conviction for a sex assault doesn’t prevent a person from running for the school board, Delta County Clerk Ann Eddins said.
“The only two requirements are that it cannot be a sex assault against a child, and they have to be a registered voter,” Eddins said.
The school board race is on a mail-in ballot, which must be returned by Nov. 6, Eddins said. About 25 percent of voters already have returned their ballots, Eddins said, and those votes will be counted, even if some voters change their minds about their vote. “If they’ve already turned in their ballot, we cannot change it,” she said.
Haag, who is running against incumbent Bob Tweedell for the District 1 seat, said he knows he did something stupid 20 years ago and called it a youthful indiscretion. Haag said he was working at a facility for developmentally challenged people when a 19-year-old woman on a field trip tempted him.
“There was this situation where I was flirting with a gal, and I patted her rear end and flipped her on the boob. She told her friend, and a staff person overheard them,” he said. “But it was a stupid move.”
Haag said he was convicted of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, a misdemeanor, but he was required to register as a sex offender because the charge was a violation of parole. Haag said he didn’t want to talk about his previous offenses.
There was never a sexual act with the woman, he said, just an overture, a simple touch in a moment of weakness.
“They got all excited about something that never was,” he said. “But when people hear you’re on the sexual register, people’s minds go to filth.”
Haag said he knew his past might come up during his run for the school board.
“It makes me the candidate I want to be because my slogan is: ‘Failure is not an option,’ ” he said. “I am 48 years old, and for the past 18 years I’ve been on a success road. I’m a pretty blessed man and willing to make the investment in my kids and the kids my kids play with.”
Haag’s wife, Deanna, said her husband had a hard life when he was younger, and she supports his run for the school board because he is a man who has pulled himself up by his bootstraps and made something of himself.
“I love him dearly, and I support him 100 percent,” she said.
Haag said he was raised by alcoholic parents and didn’t have much going for him when he was young. But he said he has made up for it since.
“My childhood was really rough,” he said. “By the time I was 17, I was in 10 different institutions, and sure enough, there wasn’t Jesus in my life.”
You can never fully run away from your past.
They must be comparatively worse than the one he talks about.
Based on this article, he does not sound like a threat to children. The woman he was accused of groping or whatever was 19. The conviction is probably not even on the books anymore back in Iowa.
Still, you are right.
“Having a previous conviction for a sex assault doesn’t prevent a person from running for the school board, Delta County Clerk Ann Eddins said.”
It damn better.
People are voting for him because we would be safer if ALL politicians wore ankle bracelets.
Also have to wonder how many of the "institutions" were of a correctional nature; how many were of a mental nature; and what the others were.
Also from the article, "Haag said he was working at a facility for developmentally challenged people when a 19-year-old woman on a field trip tempted him," and he was 28 at the time; (not a 'youth', in my book) and she MAY WELL have been one of his charges on an outing.
His phrasing makes it sound like it was a woman visiting the facility as part of a field trip, but the phrasing is ambiguous.
Dale admitted he was convicted of sexual assault in 1987 against a developmentally challenged woman in a group home in Iowa. He only touched the woman inappropriately, Haag said, but he went to prison for three years and after getting out had to register as a sex offender because he was on parole from a previous conviction.
That previous conviction, Haag revealed today, was for one count of first-degree manslaughter in 1977 for which he served nine years in prison. The conviction stemmed from the deaths of two women during a fire in a halfway house in Sioux Falls, S.D. where Haag was a resident.
Haag readily admits he started the fire, but said he didn’t mean to harm anyone. He said he was 17 years old and angry at the world so he decided to set a couch in the facility on fire.
yikes. I’m all for giving people second chances, but sheesh, this guy sure brings alot of baggage to the table.
You’d think they have other candidates other than some guy like this. People can and do reform though. I think he’d have to be leading a pretty outstanding life currently to get elected.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.