CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. — The Ontario County District attorney’s office and neighbors in Canandaigua are reacting after a serial sex offender was arrested last week for exposing himself to a 7-year-old in a grocery store last Friday.

“They should not be let loose, period,” Ruth Martin said Friday night.

District attorney James Ritts says the latest reason why 54-year-old Paul Goodrell remains a free man is a decision made by a parole judge.

“Public lewdness is actually a non-qualifying offense. I think that what got overlooked in this case is the endangering the welfare of a child,” Ritts said. Goodrell was charged with both after the incident in the store.

According to Ritts, when Canandaigua Police took Paul Goodrell, a sex offender on parole, into custody for exposing himself to the 7-year-old in the Tops Friendly Markets in Farmington, delays in paperwork and processing led to his release.

“That second charge, if someone is a Level 3 sex offender, that actually becomes a qualifying offense,” Ritts said.

A qualifying offense that should have triggered a bail requirement.

Instead, Goodrell was released, then arrested on a parole warrant, and released on Saturday.

Between 1989 and 2017, records show seven public lewdness cases against Goodrell.

Ritts said on Saturday “he was taken to city court where a judge did a detention hearing or detention appearance with him and made a determination and released him.”

For now, Goodrell is a free man — leaving neighbors like Ruth Martin feeling uneasy, after being told by a friend a serial sex offender is living nearby.

“Whatever you can do to take care of this nonsense and disgusting actions will be, will be, well done,” Martin said.