Coddling ends at new arrest?

It's hard to imagine a more-coddled criminal than Edward George Ferrang.

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With any luck, though, those coddling days are over.

You remember Ferrang, right? The Evans man was arrested a couple of years ago, accused of multiple counts of child molestation over a four-year period with a girl starting when she was age 9.

It was all sweetness and light when he got to court, though. Judge Neal Dickert, now retired, allowed Ferrang to enter what's called an "Alford plea" to a single count of sexual battery on a child.

An Alford plea, in essence, represents the accused saying, "I'm not admitting anything, but I know you've got plenty of evidence - so let's go ahead and get this over with."

Judge Dickert then smacked Ferrang with a limp noodle, sentencing him to three years' probation. Oh, and then Dickert relaxed the sex-offender registry rules to make life easier for Ferrang.

See, the law in effect at the time prohibited sex offenders from living within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, day care centers, that sort of thing. And anyone placed on the registry who lived within that limit had just 72 hours to move.

Not Ferrang! No, Judge Dickert decided that was too tough. He allowed Ferrang 120 days or until his home could sell. How nice.

But wait! There's more! Even though the "until sold" provision gave Ferrang carte blanche to never move as long as he didn't sell his house - heck, why not just ask a million bucks for it? It'll never sell that way! - Ferrang had even more luck fall in his ample lap.

An unrelated Georgia Supreme Court challenge to the distance rules invalidated those limits for anyone who owned their home prior to July 1, 2006, when the Georgia law went into effect - and Ferrang bought his home in 1998. What a happy coincidence.

So, Ferrang was spared the harsher sanctions of the sex-offender registry by a too-lenient judge who conveniently allowed him to stay put until the law that would have forced him to move was invalidated.

These things do eventually come home - pun intended - to roost. And it was in his home last week that the police paid a visit.

According to a report filed by the Columbia County Sheriff's Office, Ferrang's daughter was visiting her parents' home when she used their computer and saw the words "preteen/nude" pop up.

In what should earn the young woman the Hero of the Month award, she called the cops because she knew her father was a registered sex offender.

Capt. Steve Morris confirms that investigators found numerous images of child pornography on the computer, which they of course seized as evidence. They're cataloging the sordid mess now, while trying to find out how the images got there and whether they've been shared with other pedophiles.

So, for Ferrang, his luck seems to have run out. He's being held without bond in the Columbia County Detention Center, and prosecutors who weren't too thrilled with his treatment in the first case aren't inclined to be friendly this time around.

I've written before about the detestable Jerry Jackson Lee, the ex-doctor who was allowed to continue committing crimes because on two occasions judges let him get off lightly. Their leniency allowed Lee to roam free and continue committing crimes until the child sexual battery charge that finally sent him to prison.

Ferrang had no criminal record when he went to court in 2007, so in some respects Judge Dickert at least can claim was dealing with a first offender who could get the benefit of the doubt.

I certainly can't speak for Ferrang's future judges or possible jurors, but for me I ceased having any doubt about his guilt a long time ago. And hopefully his arrest last week will put an end to any benefits he's received from the hands of tender judges, too.

(Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail barry.paschal@newstimesline.com.)