Registered sex offender holds onto massage therapy license for years after molestation...

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by: Samantha Manning, Action News Jax Updated: May 11, 2016 - 11:36 PM

CLAY COUNTY, Fla. —
A registered sex offender was able to keep his massage therapy license for years after pleading guilty to molesting a 12-year-old girl.

Records with the Florida Department of Health show Michael E. Myers was arrested for the crime in 2011 in Middleburg but only voluntarily surrendered his professional license this week.

The arrest report said Myers inappropriately touched the girl while he was massaging her in his bedroom.

Myers pleaded guilty in 2012 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison and was placed on the sex offender registry.

Action News Jax law and safety expert Dale Carson said Myers should have lost his professional license much sooner.


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“When you’re dealing with individuals who are designated as sexual offenders, any period of time is too long,” Carson said.

Carson said a problem is the lack of communication among agencies.

Carson said there is no requirement that law enforcement immediately contact a professional licensing agency after a criminal conviction but he said such a requirement would help protect the public.

“These individuals slip through the cracks in that regard because no one is paying attention to notify the licensing agency and putting them on the alert,” Carson said. “No one is in charge of doing that. The easiest way to do that is to force that slight burden onto the investigators and the state attorney’s office as opposed to relying on the individual licensing agencies to try to get access to databases that they have no business being in.”

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement's sex offender registry indicates that Myers' current address is in Indiana.


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