Sex offender living near grade school to appear in court
Jan. 26—A convicted sex offender found living 590 feet from an elementary school will soon appear in court.
Cherokee County Sheriff's Sgt. Ryan Robison, sexual assault and child abuse investigator, was contacted Dec. 2 about a case that involved registered sex offender James Allen Rice.
The Department of Correction's probation and parole officer said Rice was contacting a witness from his case via Facebook and text message.
Rice was convicted of aggravated possession of child pornography in 2013 and was sentenced to 16 years with the DOC. He was ordered to wear a GPS ankle monitor in September 2022, and the coordinates of the device showed he stayed at the Merrell Self Storage for 27 nights.
The storage building is 590 feet from Heritage Elementary School and Southridge City Park in Tahlequah. Rice was also found to be loitering at the Tahlequah Public Library and the Northeastern State University library for several hours a day since September.
An arrest warrant against Rice was requested for failure to comply with sex offender registry, and he was taken into custody shortly after.
Rice was arrested in 2018 after he allegedly failed to comply with the Sex Offenders Registration Act. Investigators found Rice was in violence after he failed to notified authorities of a change of address, although he was living in close proximity to a school.
He was also found to be using the internet at TPL. Rice was charged with failure to notify address change as a sex offender and failure to comply with Sex Offender Registration, but those charges were dismissed.
Local attorney Crystal Jackson was appointed to represent Rice, and he is slated to appear in court Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 1:30 p.m.
