DragonCon Founder Arrested on Sex Offender Parole Violation

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. – Ed Kramer, the man who founded DragonCon, is once again in trouble with the law, just three months after being released from house arrest.

Kramer, having been already convicted of three counts of child molestation, is now accused of taking pictures of a 7-year-old girl in a doctor’s office. On February 21, 2019, he was observed by employees of the Gwinnett Pulmonary Group taking pictures of the youth in the waiting room on his cell phone, without consent from the child’s parents. Since Kramer is a registered sex offender, this is illegal.

While he was checking out, witnesses say Kramer sat so he could look back into the waiting room where the child was sitting. After he checked out, employees said he lingered for 10 minutes.

Then two employees of the facility noticed a flash from Kramer’s cellphone. When they caught his eye, they said he acted as though he was taking a call on the phone, but was then seen tracking the victim’s movements with his phone as the child moved around the lobby.

Although Kramer is no longer under court-mandated house arrest, data pulled from his ankle bracelet confirmed that he had only been at the location for around 12 minutes. Kramer is currently in custody awaiting charges.

Labeled as a “sexually dangerous predator”, Kramer has been previously convicted in 2013 of three counts of child molestation from 2000. He was sentenced to 20 years, the first five under house arrest after pleading guilty. The house arrest was appointed in lieu of jail time due to Kramer’s health conditions after lengthy legal battles.

Part of the agreement Kramer struck with prosecuters was that he wasn’t supposed to be using Twitter, but now Gwinnett County Attorney Danny Porter is investigating whether Kramer violated the agreement by using Twitter. Kramer was passing himself off as an editor, writer and producer based in Brooklyn, New York, and mostly shared links to news stories covering topics such as human rights, jury bias and social media best practices.

As of Wednesday, Kramer had followed more than 1,900 people — including a Twitter user who identified herself as a 14-year-old girl from Brisbane, Australia. That could represent a violation of the plea agreement, which bars Kramer from having any contact “either direct or indirect, with any person under the age of 16.”

DragonCon, the Atlanta-based sci-fi and fantasy convention was co-founded by Kramer over thirty years ago and is one of the largest fan conventions in the country. However, he has not been involved with the event since the original molestation charges. His ownership was bought out in 2013.

Kramer may be facing actual prison time this time, with a potential maximum sentence of 55 years.

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SCIFI Radio Staff

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