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From today's Editor & Publisher:

As protests outside the hospice housing Terri Schiavo in her final days mounted last week, numerous newspaper reports, many based on an Associated Press account, mentioned or quoted 10-year-old Joshua Heldreth and/or his father, Scott Heldreth. Josh was one of several youngsters arrested for crossing police lines in Pinellas Park, Fla., in an effort to take water to Schiavo.

None of the stories revealed that Scott Heldreth, a religious activist and anti-abortion crusader, is a registered sex offender in Florida-- until The Charlotte Observer mentioned it on Sunday.

A widely published AP story on Sunday by Allen G. Breen had painted a warmer picture of the Heldreths...

The Charlotte Observer story, however, revealed that [Scott] Heldreth had pleaded guilty to sexual battery, was in jail for parts of 1992 and 1993, according to court records, and served time on probation.

"The former Naperville, Fla., resident remains listed on the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's sex offender registry," the Observer reported...

Heldreth declined to discuss the specifics of the incident that led to his jail time. Online research shows that Heldreth was arrested after an incident at Ohio University and charged with two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping.

In the unlikely event you needed any more insight into Mr. Heldreth's thinking process--because his letting his 10-year-old son get arrested wasn't enough--here's a quote from the same story:

Heldreth claimed that his religious beliefs came to him while in jail. Before then, he said, "I basically agreed with everyone trying to kill Terri Schiavo." Then, he said, he accepted Christ and turned his life around.

Memo to Mr. Heldreth: those of us who support Terri's Shiavo's right to die weren't charged with two counts of rape and one count of kidnapping. You were.