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Habitual flasher arrested near daycare on different charges

GASTONIA, N.C. — A man who has been charged multiple times with indecent exposure was arrested again Tuesday, but on a different charge.

Tuesday morning, police in Gaston County charged Dea Williams -- who is a sex offender -- with being on school grounds.

As police arrested Williams on Tuesday morning, he told Channel 9 he was trying to help a toddler who was walking near the street.
 
"She could have stepped into the road.  I was walking down the sidewalk," Williams said.
           
Police said they were called because a parent reported a man fondling himself near the day care of Mount Zion Restoration Church.
 
A day care worker said she saw Williams, a registered sex offender, hanging around the day care.
 
Williams has been accused of exposing himself at shopping centers, a church and a rape crisis center.
 
He's been charged with indecent exposure 11 times in the past three years and convicted in eight of those cases.
 
Police charged Williams with being a registered sex offender on the campus of a day care and he was given a $250,000 bond.

Members of the church are worried and wondering if Williams will be back out of jail and in the community in a few weeks.

"It's nothing but a revolving door for him and I don't understand it. What is it going to take to stop him is what I want to know," said Lorraine Williams.
 
In one case, he was sentenced to eight months in jail for indecent exposure to a juvenile.
      
In the all of the other cases he served two months or less, because 60 days is the maximum sentence.
 
Former prosecutor Kelvin Atkinson said Williams keeps getting out because indecent exposure is a misdemeanor.
 
"There is no habitual indecent exposure offense which someone who does this over and over again can be charged with a felony and receive a higher maximum sentence," Atkinson said. "The court system is doing everything that they can to prevent him from doing this."
          
The parent who called police this morning could not be sure she saw Williams touching himself, so police only charged him with being a registered sex offender at a day care.

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