A registered sex offender with multiple convictions for sexually assaulting a child was a parks and recreation employee for the City of Boston until his employment with the city ended this week.
Robert M. Claud, 37, of Dorchester, is listed as a Level 3 sex offender on the state sex offender registry board. Per city payroll records, he appears to have been hired by the City of Boston last year, and, per the mayor’s office, worked there until this past Tuesday.
He was paid $19,931, including $2,868 in overtime, last year as a heavy motor equipment operator and laborer for the city’s parks and recreation department, which oversees parks and playgrounds and family-oriented programming, per city payroll records. He is not listed on prior years’ records.
Claud has two convictions for indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years of age and one conviction for open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior. The convictions are from Feb. 6, 2013, according to the state’s sex offender registry board.
Level 3, which Claud is registered at, is the most dangerous sex offender level. Those registered offenders are considered to have a high risk of reoffending and pose a high degree of danger to the public, according to the state website.
After repeated inquiries, Mayor Michelle Wu’s office confirmed Thursday that Claud was working for the city, but that his employment ended this past Tuesday, Aug. 12.
“Robert Claud is not a City of Boston employee,” a city spokesperson said in a statement.
The mayor’s office did not provide a reason for Claud’s departure, nor did it say whether he was terminated or voluntarily left his City Hall position.
The city provided a copy of its Criminal Offender Record Information, or CORI, policy in response to Herald questions about what the city’s policy was for hiring sex offenders, and what precautions had been taken to ensure Claud wasn’t a risk to others.
The CORI policy “applies to any full-time, part-time, contractor, internship or volunteer position for the City of Boston that, as a function of the job duties, may have direct and unsupervised contact with children 18 years of age or less, disabled persons or the elderly,” the document states.
The city’s CORI policy considers the time that’s passed since a job candidate’s offense, the age of the candidate when the offense occurred, specific circumstances of the offense, and the relevance of the offense to the nature of the work to be performed in the position.
“It is widely documented that those with criminal records face prejudice and discrimination when rejoining society,” the city’s CORI policy states.
Claud’s work address listed on the sex offender registry still ties his employment to the city, as of Thursday. His listed work address, 275 Canterbury St. in Roslindale, is the City of Boston parks and recreation maintenance yard.
“SORB can confirm the information on the website is the work address this individual currently has on file,” Elaine Driscoll, a spokesperson for the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety and Sex Offender Registry Board, said in a statement.
By state statute, the Sex Offender Registry Board is permitted to disclose an offender’s work address, but not the name of their employer. If offenders get a new job, they are required by state statute to inform the board 10 days prior to starting new employment, regardless of when their annual registration obligation takes place with their local police department, a state official said.
If there’s no new employment, offenders are not required to update their registered addresses until their next annual registration, a state official said.
Claud’s up-to-date annual photo update on the Sex Offender Registry Board was Jan. 28.
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