YOUNGSTOWN — A former Youngstown police officer convicted of sex offenses against high school girls has asked a judge to be released from his alternative sentencing program for one day to attend the high school graduation of his son.

Arthur Carter, 50, wants to attend the ceremony Sunday at Struthers High School. Carter is a former Youngstown police officer who was sentenced to four years in prison for sex offenses against three high school girls while he was assistant track coach at Ursuline High School.

He was released from prison six months early in February into an alternative sentencing program.

Carter’s attorney, Lynn Maro, filed a motion May 2 asking the terms of Carter’s prison release six months early be modified to allow him to attend the graduation and a family gathering afterwards.

When Mahoning County Common Pleas Court Judge Anthony D’Apolito approved Carter’s release, he placed Carter on five years of community control, formerly known as parole. As a condition of his release, the judge ordered Carter to enter and complete an in-house program at the Community Corrections Association of Youngstown and participate in its programming.

When Erik Spitzler, assistant Ohio attorney general, responded to Maro’s motion Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, he asked the request be denied, because of the “serious nature of the defendant’s underlying conduct as well as the nature of this modification being related to a high school event.”

Spitzler also stated Carter is on “transitional community control, which requires a higher level of supervision.”

Carter was due for release from prison Aug. 7 after entering the Ohio prison system Sept. 14, 2020, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records.

He pleaded guilty in July 2020 to three counts of felonious assault after he was indicted in 2018 on 23 sex charges involving the three students for incidents from 2001 to 2009.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office prosecuted the case after former Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains asked for a special prosecutor, apparently to avoid any potential conflict of interest.

Have an interesting story? Contact Ed Runyan by email at erunyan@vindy.com. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @TribToday.