Registered sex offender hired as mall Easter bunny

MINOT, ND (KTRK) -- Daniel Sanderson pleaded guilty last December to exposing himself to a child.

Three months later, Sanderson wound up working as a mall Easter bunny for Cherry Hill Photo Enterprises, and he was hired through a temporary employment agency called Command Center.

Command Center directed us to its attorney, Brendan Simaytis, who provided us with a statement.

In it, he says Sanderson presented himself to the agency as Daniel Elwell, using his middle name as his last name.

And the company says it did not know his last name was Sanderson until his arrest.

In the statement, Simaytis writes, "We have determined that a criminal background search was not conducted for Sanderson prior to being placed on this particular assignment."

He goes on to write "Our local Minot employees have been counseled, and we feel confident this will not occur in the future."

Minot Police Captain John Klug says Sanderson failed to update his registry after moving, but it didn't end there.

"We were waiting for a warrant to be issued, and he would have been picked up," Klug says. "In that process, we get the tip that he's working for a company in Minot that he wasn't registered at."

Klug says Sanderson violated two parts of his registration, as well as a third violation with the parole and probation office. But his indecent exposure conviction could have been easily found on the North Dakota court's website, free of charge.

"In this case, at least in North Dakota, you can go to ND Courts website and you can look somebody up, and you can see what kind of convictions they've had," Klug says.

"And once you look at the convictions, you can go to the State of North Dakota website, you can go to the offender registration portion of that site, and you can check and see who's in what community."

Klug also says each sex offender in Minot has an officer assigned to them, who checks on their status every three months.