Sex offender pleads guilty to loitering near Ransom school

A registered child sex offender pleaded guilty Thursday to loitering near Ransom Grade School. Tomure Adams could face three years in prison.

Adams, 50, of Bolingbrook entered a blind plea in La Salle County Circuit Court to one count of being a sex offender in a school zone, a Class 4 felony. A second such count was dismissed.

Chief Judge H. Chris Ryan Jr. scheduled a sentencing hearing for May 15. Adams at that time will have an opportunity to speak in open court.

Adams was charged in December after school officials spotted a “suspicious person” in a vehicle driving around the school building Dec. 3 and “loitered there some time.”

Assistant La Salle County State’s Attorney Jeremiah Adams said in open court that the school superintendent confronted the driver, later identified as Adams, and took a photo of his license plate. The suspect, he said, told the superintendent that he was there to meet an individual he named, but the person identified had no connection to Ransom school.

La Salle County sheriff’s deputies tracked the plate number and questioned Adams, who was found to have a 1999 conviction in Will County for aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Adams admitted to police that he was at the school about 10 minutes.