NEW BEDFORD -- A Level 3 sex offender who just recently returned to the city has been arrested after police say he molested a 6-year-old boy in the second floor magazine room of the New Bedford Public Library on Wednesday.
Corey Deen Saunders, 26, staying at the Mariner's Home at 15 Johnny Cake Hill, was charged with indecent assault and battery on a child under 14; rape of a child under 16 (second offense); and enticing a child under 16.
He is being held at the Bristol County House of Corrections pending a dangerousness hearing slated for Feb. 7.
New Bedford Police have called a 3:45 p.m. press conference at headquarters on Rockdale Avenue regarding the arrest and arraignment .
Police said Mr. Saunders moved to the city in the past week or two and registered as a Level 3 sex offender, the most serious designation, given to offenders deemed a high risk to re-offend.
The incident unfolded Wednesday between 5 and 6 p.m. when Mr. Saunders was in the magazine room at the downtown library, police say.
Police say he lured a 6-year-old boy to a secluded corner, fondled the boy and then performed oral sex on him.
While the boy’s pants were pulled down, Mr. Sauders allegedly asked the child for his address, police say. When the child gave it to him, he said he would be back the next day.
Meanwhile, the boy’s mother was in another section of the library working on a computer. She never knew her son was being attacked, police say.
Following the attack, a librarian became suspicious when she spotted the boy with the man. She told police she went to a database to look up sex offenders and spotted Mr. Saunders’ photograph.
Once she learned he was a sex offender, the librarian went in search of the mother. She informed the mother her son was with a sex offender.
Watch footage of the press conference
Mr. Saunders left the library before the pair could question the boy. However, once his mother and the librarian learned what took place, they called police.
By 6 p.m. police issued a warning over the police radio and Mr. Saunders was arrested near the library.
In 2000, Mr. Saunders -- then 17 of New Bedford -- had been placed in a foster home in Attleboro, where within seven hours of arriving had been was arrested for assault with intent to rape; indecent assault and battery on a child under 14; and attempting to commit unnatural intercourse.
At the time, he had been in DSS custody since he was 12, and had twice been removed from institutions for “putting other kids at risk,” according to Assistant District Attorney John Mahoney.
Mr. Saunders arrived at the foster home at midnight and within seven hours of his emergency placement, his foster mother said she caught Mr. Saunders sexually assaulting her 7-year-old son.
Mayor Scott W. Lang said the perpetrator is a “predator ... a sick, demented individual who should not be out in society.”
Mayor Lang, a former assistant district attorney, said the “system is failing” when a repeat sex offender is returned to society to commit new crimes. “Each one (of these incidents) leaves a devastating wake,” the mayor said.
The legal system needs to reconsider the “balancing of rights” between criminals and victims, he said.
He reiterated his call of about two years ago for a stepped-up security system at the library.
The mayor has called for identification and a library card to be required for every person entering the building and a record of names kept of those who entered.
Now, Mayor Lang said, the city needs to make certain that everything possible is done to help the victim and his family deal the effects of the attack.