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Team coverage For more than a decade, one man has been caught repeatedly sneaking into schools and watching girls undress in the locker rooms, but even if he gets caught five, 10 or 50 more times for the same crime, he will never have to register as a sex offender.
Even though what the man is accused of is disturbing, it's not disturbing enough to make him have to register as a sex offender.
Angie Welling, with the Department of Corrections, said, "There are a list of crimes that are considered registrable offensives."
Welling explains that kidnapping, rape and incest are a few of the crimes that will get you on the Sex Offender Registry. Welling and her office maintain and enforce that list but don't make up the criteria.
"The Utah Legislature is who decides what is a registrable offense, and lewdness is not on that list of crimes you have to register for," she explained.
Brian Richard Lee is in jail for hiding in the girls' locker at Brighton High Wednesday night during dance performances. He watched as the dancers changed in and out of costume before one noticed him and called police.
"They saw him and someone said, 'Hey! What are you doing?' And he left, ran out the door," said dance teacher Lisa Messer.
But he didn't get far. Police arrested Lee before he got in his car.
The day before, some students saw Lee inside a school stairwell. The principal says they thought he was a custodian.
"He's obviously involved in some kind of premeditation before he's committing whatever acts he wants to do. So, it's disconcerting. It's very disconcerting," said Officer Beau Babka, spokesman for the Cottonwood Heights Police Department.
The arrest isn't Lee's first. In fact, he's been arrested for the same thing at several schools in Davis and Weber counties.
Last December Lee was arrested at Davis High School for walking into the girls' locker room during a basketball game. Before that he was busted at Orion Junior High in Harrisville for a similar stunt.
"The thing that I'm concerned about, and we're concerned about, is the breadth of this. He obviously got caught, and he's been caught a few times, but are there other situations where he hasn't been caught?" Babka said.
He's been convicted of similar crimes in 1996, '95 and '92, but it's still not enough to get his name on the Sex Offender Registry.
"It's not the number of crimes you're charged with that gets you on the list, it's the crime itself," Welling said.
After looking closer at Lee's record, we found one of his crimes involved a child. That should have put him on the list, but after 10 years, the statute of limitations runs out for certain crimes, and Lee's name could have been expunged.
Now that Lee is in jail, police hope he'll stay there. They're working with prosecutors to make sure his charges for this recent crime carry a heavier punishment. Police say he has pleaded down many of his cases to misdemeanors.
But police hope Lee won't get off easy this time. They hope to work with prosecutors to enhance the charges. "He should not be in society," Babka said.
"I just hope they can keep him this time locked up," Messer said.
During school hours, the doors to Brighton are locked and visitors have to register at the main office to be inside. But during the dance performance all the doors were unlocked, making it easier for Lee to get in.
Brighton High's principal and faculty are reviewing their security policies.
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