Sex Offender Accused Of Stealing Pictures From Day Cares
DENVER (CBS4) - There are a lot of questions being asked about a registered sex offender accused of stealing pictures from two day cares.
One of the daycares is in Broomfield and the other in Denver. Kenneth Kinder worked as a janitor for both day cares.
Kinder, 37, has an extensive criminal history. In 1999 he was convicted of a sex assault with a 14-year-old victim in Aurora which put him on the state sex offender registry. Now police have issued an arrest warrant for Kinder.
Because Kinder was not an employee of the day care, but instead a contractor with a cleaning service, there were no requirements that a background check be done.
Kinder is accused of stealing cameras' memory cards and cash from the two day cares -- the Children's Learning Corner in Denver and the Children's Garden Learning Center in Broomfield.
"There are photographs of children and families on those memory cards," Det. John White with Denver police said.
Both day care ownerships did not want to comment on the theft case, or that a registered sex offender was working in their schools. But management from one of the day cares said they had been using Jan Pro Cleaning Services to hire their janitors, who worked after hours.
Jan Pro is a nationwide company. They told CBS4 the local franchise owners are responsible for doing their own background checks on anyone they hire.
Denver police said they searched Kinder's Aurora home and found some of the stolen items.
"Those items we are looking at now, reviewing, as well as having sent a computer that was owned by kinder; having it looked at," White said. "There should have been a very thorough background check that should have been done on Mr. Kinder and based on that information that should have determined whether or not he was there."
Denver police do not believe the thefts are sexually motivated.
The Colorado Department of Human Services said state law requires child care centers to run background checks on employees, but not for contractors who don't have contact with children.
CBS4 also put a call into the franchise cleaning service that employed Kinder to inquire if it did a background check on Kinder. The call was not returned.
