By AP/KWMU
Springfield, MO – A Missouri State University professor who is a registered sex offender has been placed on leave.
The school wants to check reports that Eugene Michael Hendrix, 53, had contact with schoolchildren and didn't comply with state registry laws.
Hendrix was publicly identified April 3 after a Missouri State student asked parents at the university's Greenwood Laboratory School how they felt about having a sex offender on campus.
In 1983, Hendrix pleaded guilty in Ohio to raping a nine-year-old boy and served three-and-a-half years in prison. He began teaching at Missouri State in 1995.
The university defended his presence, saying he had been open about his past and had complied with the state's sex offender registry law. But Greene County records obtained by the Springfield News-Leader show Hendrix did not register as an offender until 2003.