RICHMOND, Va. -- A convicted sex offender accused of lying to the state sex offender registry has been granted bail by a Richmond judge.
The suspect, Darren Thornton, is also facing other charges in Chesterfield County and is at the center of a communication issue between Chesterfield and Fairfax counties related to charges and a conviction that led to him becoming a registered sex offender.
In August 2020, Darren Thornton got a job as a counselor at a Fairfax County middle school. In November 2020, he was arrested by Chesterfield Police in an undercover operation and was charged with solicitation of prostitution from a minor.
Chesterfield Police said when they learned of Thornton's job, they tried to notify the school district by calling and sending an email. Police said that they were given email addresses for the current superintendent, but have since found out the emails were wrong and they were never sent.
They said they didn't find this out because the undeliverable notification informing them of the mistake went into their spam folder.
CBS6 spoke with Chesterfield Police Chief Jeffrey Katz about the communication issue that happened and how he says the department will act in the future.
"It's an anomaly, but it's an important thing to learn from. So, you know, one of the things that I've directed our staff to do is when we're working on these operations, the supervisor in charge of that operation, if we come upon someone that's in a sensitive public position, we'll make a call at the operation. Like we're not even gonna wait 24 hours to do it. We're gonna make a call, right, then we'll follow it up with an email."
Thronton was convicted on the solicitation charge in March, was put on probation and had to register as a sex offender.
On June 9, Thornton was allegedly caught again in Chesterfield in a prostitution sting, was given a summons and was released.
Police recognized Thornton and realized he was still working at Fairfax schools and placed a call, prompting Thornton to be placed on unpaid leave on June 17, according to WJLA, a TV station in D.C.
On June 21, Thornton registered himself as a sex offender but listed himself as being self-employed. He wasn't officially fired from his job in Fairfax until August 18.
On Thursday, Virginia State Police arrested Thornton and charged him with four counts of false information on the sexual offense registry.
In court on Friday, District Judge Lawrence Cann asked prosecutors about their position to bond and said he was aware of something in Chesterfield, but prosecutors only brought up the 2020 case and didn't indicate an injection.
There were also family members present for Thornton and they promised they would ensure that he returns for future court dates.
CBS6 legal analyst Todd Stone said granting bail in a class like this is common.
"These offenses are not considered violent offenses and they're also not such aggravated offenses that people generally tend to flee the jurisdiction and not come back to court," Stone said.
The judge granted Thornton a $4,000 personal recognizance bond.
CBS6 asked the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney about the more recent allegations not being brought up by her prosecutor. We were told she was unaware of the current Chesterfield case because it was not entered into what is called the Virginia Criminal Information Network (V-CIN).
Stone said that it's not uncommon for prosecutors not to be aware of cases in other jurisdictions and rely on V-CIN to let them know, adding because Thornton was issued a summons, it wasn't required to be entered at that point.
"If someone's released on a summons, which commonly occurs on misdemeanor offenses, then the duty to put it into the VSM system doesn't occur until time of disposition or time of conviction. So that's much later, that has not happened yet, in the case of the second prostitution charge," Stone said.
The Commonwealth said they would not appeal this decision.
Thornton informed the court that he has his own attorney.
A status hearing is scheduled for September 9 to pick a trial for these state police charges. Thornton has a September 29 hearing for the Chesterfield charges.
This is a developing story, so anyone with more information can email newstips@wtvr.com to send a tip.
