Sex Offender Had Stolen Identity of Dead Teacher, Records Show
Originally published by The Associated Press, July 8, 2001
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A fired assistant principal jailed for failing to register as a convicted sex offender in Alabama had used the identity of a deceased Florida teacher to obtain a job in Mobile, an investigation revealed.
Samuel J. Leavis began teaching in Mobile in 1991, starting at a private Catholic school then moving the next year into the public school system. He had provided school officials a Florida teaching certificate that he obtained by posing as Patrick J. Dolan, a teacher who died at Northport Middle School in 1987 from a heart attack, the Mobile Register reported Sunday.
Leavis' true identity and criminal records were uncovered following his arrest June 22 in Mobile, where neighbors had complained about young people at his home.
Leavis, born in Littleton, Mass., was fired from his job as an assistant principal at an elementary school and remains in Mobile County jail without bond for failure to register as a sex offender and having child pornography in his home.
For nearly 10 years before he came to Mobile, Leavis lived in and out of southeast Florida, the Register reported in tracing Leavis' background for 30 years.
Dolan may not have known Leavis, but Leavis may have heard about the teacher's death. Dolan suffered a heart attack on May 19, 1987, while he was teaching an 8th-grade English class. His death made the front page of the Port St. Lucie News.
Mary M. Dolan of Stuart, Fla., Patrick Dolan's widow, called the Leavis' scheme "spooky," and said she was unfamiliar with his name. At the time of Dolan's death, Leavis was serving time in a prison in Cross City, Fla.
In Florida, Leavis had convictions for falsifying a passport application and attempted child sexual abuse at a Boy Scout camp in Florida in 1985. Seven years earlier, he was convicted in Massachusetts on seven charges of sexual contact with foster children who were in his care, police said.
After prison in Florida, he moved to Lousiana, where he stayed long enough to change his name.
On one document filed in St. John the Baptist Parish in January 1990, he changed his name from John C. Leavis, the name he was born with and convicted under in Massachusetts and Florida, to Samuel J. Leavis.
On another name change form filed in Orleans Parish in December 1990, Leavis claimed to be Patrick Dolan and changed that name to Samuel Leavis. On that form, he claimed to have changed his Social Security number from Dolan's to a new one.
That new Social Security number matches the one connected with the current Samuel J. Leavis, 57, of Semmes.
Tim Fleming, Leavis' attorney on the Mobile charges, said his client's only crime is that "he just didn't sign a piece of paper" to register as a sex offender.
After searching a computer seized from Leavis' house, police also charged Leavis with possession of child pornography. Police have said they are looking at the possibility of additional charges, but they have not filed any since his arrest.
As for the name changes, Fleming said, "I would think he was just trying to get a fresh start. … He certainly had no plans of repeating any of his (crimes) from the past. He was just trying to live out his life."
