Internal documents show a convicted transgender-identifying sex offender accused of exposing himself to women and minors in Arlington and Fairfax County, Virginia, had contact via email with an Arlington School Board member.
Local news outlet 7News first reported on the exchange, which was obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Defending Education. The new report surfaced as 58-year-old Richard “Riki” Cox faces 20 charges related to his visits to pools owned by the Arlington Public Schools (APS), which are open to the public outside of school hours. Both Fairfax and Arlington school districts have policies allowing people to access locker rooms and other private spaces based on “gender identity,” rather than biological reality, enabling Cox to be where he could undress in front of women and children.
Emails obtained via FOIA show Cox sent an email to Arlington School Board Member Kathleen Clark on Oct. 28, 2024. Cox told Clark that people who complain about a transgender person using female-designated showers at APS should be invited to use single locker rooms. Cox asked Clark where she stood on the issue so he could decide whether to vote for her in the upcoming election at the time.
Clark appears to have responded to Cox, touting her work in LGBTQ+ advocacy and asking Cox more about the alleged incident, according to the report.
Cox followed up with Clark on Oct. 31, 2024, telling her he was offended by pool staff at Washington Liberty High School.
“They literally asked me how much longer I was going to be in the shower, and directed other patrons to use the individual changing room while I was in the full locker room,” he wrote. “This is again sending the message that a transgender person is a freak and I guess not normal and beautiful like everyone else. There are anti-discrimination laws on both the Federal, State, and County levels including in the Schools to prevent this kind of animosity. Are you going to increase the training of the Washington Liberty Pool staff and/or change their policies to be welcoming or inclusive, or should I be voting for someone else.”
Clark responded to Cox on the same day saying in part “I hope that your did not experience transphobic statements from the staff. You should be able to use the showers and changing rooms that you are most comfortable using.” She also told Cox “training needs to happen” and said she reached out to a leader at “AGIA [Arlington Gender Identity Alliance] to alert them to the APS Aquatics Update email sent out to the county residents that use the pool,” as well as the other Democrat candidates she was running against.
Cox went on to repeatedly use women’s locker rooms in Arlington County after the email exchange, according to police. 7News said it is unclear if Clark knew Cox was a sex offender at the time of the exchange. A spokesperson from APS told the outlet this week that Clark was responding to Cox as a private citizen and school board candidate. The district said:
In the email exchange, Richard Cox was posing as a concerned citizen. As Superintendent Durán stated earlier this year; as soon as APS was aware of the presence of a registered sex offender in one of our aquatics centers, we immediately prohibited the offender from being on APS property and notified the Arlington County Police Department and our County partners. At no time did we knowingly admit a sex offender into our aquatics facilities. APS has strengthened its security protocols for signing into our facilities. Community-use pool access requirements during non-school hours mirror the APS standard of a 100% ID check against the sex offender database before being allowed to enter any APS pool.
More emails show APS working with the Arlington County Board on “talking points” about the “W-L Pool incident” in January 2025 after 7News broke a story about Cox’s status as a registered sex offender, according to the report.
A day after the report, Clark emailed Assistant Superintendent Catherine Ashby about Cox emailing her and about the 7News report, saying “I hope that future APS/Media comms portrays this as an isolated incident.”
Another email from February shows the Arlington County Communications Director discussing Cox with the Arlington Police Department and an APS staff member, stating that the county does not check IDs at each entry point, according to the report. Superintendent Durán said during a February 2025 school board meeting the district “did not knowingly admit a sex offender into any of our aquatic facilities.”
According to the district, the aquatics manager found Cox on the Virginia sex offenders list in October of 2024 and reported the revelation to the school’s Emergency Mangagement team, which contacted police. The district said pool staff were told to deny Cox entry and contact police if needed.
Arlington police said Cox exposed himself to women and minors in women’s locker rooms at two high schools and a recreation center. He is accused of behaving similarly at several schools in Fairfax County, although Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis is not charging him for the incidents there, according to the report.
Arlington police said Cox exposed himself to women and children in women’s locker rooms at two high schools and an Arlington recreation center. In Cox’s Arlington preliminary hearing a week ago, new details emerged that prosecutors say show Cox was intentionally tracking children not only in Arlington County, but also in Fairfax County.
More details came to light during Cox’s Arlington preliminary hearing last week. Prosecutors said the evidence shows Cox was intentionally tracking children in both counties. A detective testified that she found child sex abuse images on Cox’s phone, as well as the Fairfax County recreation centers’ children’s swim class schedule. More than a dozen witnesses testified, including a mother who, along with her 5-year-old daughter, allegedly saw Cox standing naked in a shower of a women’s locker room with the curtain open, touching himself.
One mother of a 9-year-old daughter told the outlet she had spoken to Arlington County School Board Member Mary Kadera about Cox in Sept. 2024. Kadera allegedly responded with the solution to add a sign encouraging people to be considerate of one another in the locker room by covering private parts and observing locker room etiquette, per the report. Kadera reportedly did not respond to the outlet’s request for comment.
The Cox case has been a flashpoint in the 2026 Gubernatorial race, with Republican nominee Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears slamming former Congresswoman and Democrat nominee Abigail Spanberger for supporting “gender identity” policies that enabled Cox to prey on women and children.
During a debate on Thursday, Spanberger was asked if she would rescind a recent directive from Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) barring transgender-identifying males from accessing female sports and spaces. She repeatedly side-stepped the question and would not give a straight yes or no answer.
Breitbart News reached out to Spanberger’s campaign for comment on the documents showing correspondence between Cox and the school board member, and asked whether she would rescind Youngkin’s guidance as governor. A spokesperson did not answer whether Spanberger would rescind the guidance.
“Convicted sex offender Richard Cox is a predator who should be in jail — and that’s exactly where he is,” a spokesperson told Breitbart News via email.
“Abigail is a parent of three daughters in Virginia public schools and a former federal law enforcement officer who went after child predators — nothing is more important to her than the safety of Virginia’s kids,” the spokesperson continued. “As Governor, Abigail will work with state and local law enforcement officers to keep Virginia kids safe and make sure sex offenders are prevented from preying on children and are prosecuted for their crimes.”
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Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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