SAN ANTONIO - Be careful who you hire to entertain at your kids party. News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooter Brian Collister found out it could be a convicted pedophile.
To help keep your kids safe, the Trouble Shooters recently won a fight to require the Texas Department of Public Safety to release more information about what sex offenders do for a living. When we got this new information, we found something very disturbing. A San Antonio child molester has been working as a clown.
Trouble Shooter Brian Collister confronted the man as he was waiting for a court hearing. “Why are you a clown? You're a sex offender,” asked Collister.
“Oh. Why.... hmmmm,” said convicted sex offender Alfonso Perez.
Perez calls himself "Pon Chin Chin" the clown when he entertains at birthday parties. Perez would hand out business cards to get parents to hire him for their event.
What he doesn't tell them is that in 1993 he was convicted of indecency with a child by sexual contact and got ten years probation. The girl he attacked was only ten years old at the time of the attack three years earlier.
Perez says he’s been working as a clown for three to four years and told Collister he hasn’t molested any children.
As a convicted sex offender, Perez is required by law to register his current employment with the San Antonio Police Department every year. He failed to tell the police he was a clown until they got wind of it last September.
Not notifying police of his change of employment is a violation of Texas sex offender registration laws.
“Do you think it's wrong that you are around children?” asked Collister.
“I think it is wrong,” said Perez.
“Are you still doing it?" asked Collister.
“No, no sir. I’m stopping. I know it's wrong,” said Perez.
Since Perez is no longer on probation and served out his time, it's not against the law for him to work in a profession that puts him in contact with children. He broke the law when he failed to register the change of employment.
“Do you think you should go to jail for being a clown when you're a child molester and not reporting you were being a clown?” asked Collister.
“Yea, but I'm not a clown no more," responded Perez.
Perez will be back in court next week. His attorney applied for deferred adjudication, but the judge can give him anywhere from two to ten years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Either way, his clowning days are over.
If you're planning on hiring someone to entertain at your child's party, check them out by running their name through the DPS sex offender website. We’ve made it easy, just click here...
