A group of mothers in Seminole who were suspicious about a man who frequently rode his bicycle on the grounds of an elementary school at dismissal time figured out he was a registered sex offender.

One of the mothers called the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. The man, Herbert John Saxton, 67, was arrested Friday on a charge of trespassing on school grounds.

According to an arrest report, parents had seen Saxton ride his bike in front of and onto the grounds of Bauder Elementary School in Seminole. Someone even made a formal complaint about it to the sheriff’s office earlier this year.

A group of parents was talking about the man on the bike on a Facebook group for mothers of children who go to the school, the report states. The parents “were alerting each other of the (man) frequently riding his bicycle on the school grounds, usually around dismissal time,” the report states.

One of the parents then looked up the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s online list of registered sexual offenders and found Saxton there. This was posted to the Facebook group and the sheriff’s office was alerted by one of the mothers, the report states.

Deputies also pulled surveillance footage from an exterior camera at the school that showed Saxton in the area.

Saxton was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1997 on charges of sexual battery for offenses that occurred in 1988, state records show.

He was released in 2001. He was charged in 2004 with failing to comply with this sexual offender registration and was fined.

After this last arrest, he was released from the Pinellas County Jail after posting $1,000 bail. Records indicate he was fitted with a GPS monitor.



