Opinion: Step down, Mr. Lockhart

We agree with his five fellow Sandusky city commissioners who have urged their colleague, Greg Lockhart, to step down. We're baffled the other commissioner, Wes Poole, refuses to take a stand, one way or another, about Lockhart's continued service on commission.Lockhart was convicted of two child sex offenses in 2001. He did not disclose that as a candidate in 2015, and voters who elected him were unaware of his extensive criminal past. And since then, he's not denied what the girl said happened, saying only that whatever it was it occurred before he was elected.A sexual offense conviction involving a child — that alone — makes him unqualified to serve as a commissioner, in our view. That alone makes him unqualified to serve in any role of public trust.Lockhart has offered almost no defense for his child sex convictions, or for the other rape and violence allegations against him brought forward by women who say he victimized them. He's pleaded no contest and was convicted in at least two other assaults against women and a domestic violence charge.He was accused in 2000 of raping a 14-year-old girl at a teen dance club he operated that led to those first convictions. Four years later, police asked him to stay off the premises at Perkins High School, where he was putting flyers on the windshields of cars in the school parking lot advertising a new teen dance club he was opening. A few years after that, he allegedly sexually assaulted a 16-year-old, and three years ago, he was accused of having sex with a woman who passed out after a date with Lockhart and after he refused to take her home.The pattern — shown in his criminal history over the past two decades in more than 20 police reports — is clear. Given that record, we likely would not believe any explanation Lockhart might give — if he bothered to give one — for why all these women have targeted him, or why they would falsely accuse him. We don't believe Lockhart. We do believe the women, whose claims are viewed as legitimate and show an apparent pattern of predatory behavior.None of the allegations against Lockhart appear to have been disproved, or "debunked." Lockhart never even brought a defense in court, choosing instead to take no contest convictions in plea deals to reduced charges for the first alleged rape, and for later accusations of assault and domestic violence three different times.Lockhart should resign. It's a simple as that.