An accused child molester is free on bond and walking around the streets where he first made contact with his alleged young victims, and some of the parents want to know why.

Ricky Lynn Cagle, 40, of Spring City was arrested on Feb. 16 and charged with two counts of rape of a child for allegedly assaulting a 10-year-old boy. He was eventually released on $75,000 bond. He was then arrested again on June 5 on an additional eight counts of rape of a child involving two more little boys. He was released without any additional bond and allowed to return home to the neighborhood where he first made contact with the three young boys he is charged with raping.

Parents of two of the boys contacted The Herald-News, concerned about the situation.

"This guy's a danger to the community and to our kids," one father said last week. "Everybody worked together to get this guy back in jail after he got out the first time. Now some of the little boys in the neighborhood are not allowed to go out of their houses, while he gets to walk down the street, free as a bird. That's not right."

The father, who has since moved his family to Dayton to get away from Cagle, said he believes the District Attorney's office didn't do enough to try to keep Cagle in jail.

"The one person you think is going to protect you lets him out. It doesn't make sense," he said.

What happened may be as simple as miscommunication between the District Attorney's office and the Rhea County Circuit Court Clerk's office.

As Rhea County Chief Deputy Charles Byrd, who is investigating the case, continued to uncover more victims this spring, Assistant District Attorney Jim Pope decided to combine the cases. Although indicted on two counts of rape of a child during the April Grand Jury session, Pope re-presented that case and added an additional three counts of rape of a child involving another boy and another five counts of rape of a child involving a third boy, at the June session. The 10 total counts were divided among three separate indictments, one for each of the boys.

Cagle was already free after securing a $75,000 bond. But when he was rearrested on June 5, Circuit Court Clerk John Fine contacted Circuit Judge Thomas W. "Rusty" Graham by phone. Graham set an additional $75,000 bond in the case, raising the total bond to $150,000, according to Fine.

Graham could not be reached for confirmation last week.

Fine says he told a deputy clerk to tell the District Attorney's office that Cagle would have to post a second $75,000 bond. Fine said he believes his clerk relayed the proper message, but District Attorney General Mike Taylor said last week that's not the message Pope said he received.

Since the original two counts for which Cagle was originally arrested were represented to the grand jury and included in the 10 counts, Pope said he was led to believe that the three new indictments would supersede the original indictment and that the one $75,000 bond would stand for all 10 counts, according to Taylor.

"A bond is not a punishment," Taylor said. "It's just to ensure that a defendant will appear in court. Under our system of justice, defendants are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. This is not an unreasonable bond."

Judges in Rhea County historically set low bonds, Taylor explained. He said he has had murder cases where the bond was less than $75,000.

That's small comfort to the parents of the children Cagle is charged with molesting.

"Nobody around here thinks what happened is right," another parent said. "We were told they would try to get another bond to keep him in jail. They didn't do that."

Taylor did say that if Cagle is arrested again or approaches one of his alleged victims, the District Attorney's office will revoke his bond and put him back in jail.

John Carpenter can be reached at jcarpenter@xtn.net.