A 38-year-old sex offender from Maryland has registered an address in the Village of Mira Mesa.
Steven Paul Atkinson registered an address at 1032 Ventura Drive in The Villages with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on Flag Day. In 2006, when he was 27 years old, he approached a 15-year-old neighbor girl in Easton, Maryland. The 15-year-old girl told police she was walking home when Atkinson waved her to come over, according to an account published at the time in the Easton Star Democrat.
Atkinson asked her when her mother was coming home and allegedly started making sexual remarks to her. He allegedly offered her money to expose herself. The girl refused, but agreed to carry sodas up the stairs, which Atkinson asked her to do because he said he had a hernia, according to charging papers.
Atkinson allegedly touched her inappropriately several times, according to the papers, put $1 bills in the front of her shirt and shorts and handed her a $20 bill. He asked the girl if they could still be friends and she said yes out of fear, according to the papers. She then went home and phoned a friend of her mother’s to come pick her up. When police met with the girl and her mother, the girl was shaking and crying, according to charging papers. She went to the Memorial Hospital at Easton because she had asthma and apparently was having an anxiety attack.
At the time, Atkinson was listed as a “sexually violent offender” on the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services’ Sex Offender Registry for charges of third and fourth-degree sex offense, according to the newspaper account. In 1997, he was convicted on a charge of assault with intent to rape. In 1996, he was convicted of causing abuse to a child.
