CHICKASHA — A sex offender is on the streets after a loophole was discovered by his attorney.

Michael Floyd Jacobs, 53, was released from Grady County Jail Friday after pleading no contest Thursday to two counts of lewd molestation.

Floyd was convicted of sexually molesting two elementary age children in 2006 while he was dating their grandmother. Assistant District Attorney Lesley March said the police also had information that Jacobs had also allegedly molested at least one other girl when she young. That victim is now 26.

Jacobs was sentenced Thursday to a 10-year suspended sentence and given credit for the year he spent in county jail.

March said the sentence was a result of a deal struck following a successful argument by Defense Attorney Bill Smith that could have resulted in the case being thrown out of court.

In his motion to quash, Smith produced an unpublished Oklahoma Criminal Court of Appeals case, State v. Michael Ray Roley, in which the court supports a suspect’s right to confront his accusers over the ideal of preserving a child from having to testify at a preliminary hearing.

In the Jacobs case, both victims were present and available to give testimony at the preliminary hearing, where the State must present enough evidence to prove probable cause that the defendant committed the crime. The State elected, however, to use the persons the children confided in rather than the children themselves as witnesses in the hearing in an effort to protect the children.

The judge ruled that the State followed the statutory guidelines for using the other witnesses and allowed them to proceed at the time despite objections from the defense.

After being presented with the defense’s argument earlier in the week, however, March said she was informed by District Judge Richard Van Dyck that he would be inclined to sustain the defense’s motion to have the case thrown out.

The decision would mean the District Attorney’s Office would have to start all over again with the prosecution if they could not strike a deal. Smith and his client agreed to plead no contest for the suspended sentence.

“It’s going to affect a number of cases we have going right now,” March said concerning the unpublished ruling, “It appears we will have to force all of our young victims to testify at preliminary hearings.”

March said Jacobs will have to register as a sex offender while on his suspended sentence and for the 10 years following.