An order to apprehend warrant was issued earlier this month for a 25-year-old Minot registered sex offender who once worked as the Easter Bunny at Dakota Square Mall.

Daniel Ewell Sanderson is scheduled to have a probation revocation hearing today before Judge Todd Cresap in district court in Minot. His lawyer has filed a request for the hearing to be continued.

According to the petition for revocation filed with the court, Sanderson pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated in February in Minot Municipal Court. He also was terminated from the sex offender treatment program at North Central Human Service Center “due to lack of honesty and continued high risk behaviors,” according to the affidavit.

A probation search of his cell phone on April 12 found that Sanderson had used the internet to access pornography. The search terms for child pornography on the phone were sexually graphic and disturbing. There were also pictures and videos of children found on his phone. In late May, his mother went to authorities with another cell phone that had also been used to access pornography and had internet searches for child porn also using graphic and disturbing terms. Pictures of Sanderson in his Easter bunny costume were also on that cell phone. In addition, his mother found three pairs of soiled children’s underwear in Sanderson’s apartment when she was cleaning it out.

Sanderson’s original offense was Class A misdemeanor indecent exposure. He pleaded guilty in December 2015 for exposing himself to a young child. Sanderson was sentenced to one year in jail, with all that time suspended, and two years of supervised probation and was required to register as a sex offender. He was not allowed to work with minors as one of the conditions of his probation. However, Sanderson worked as the Easter Bunny for Command Labor at Dakota Square Mall for two and a half weeks in March 2016. His probation officer had filed in February 2016 to revoke his probation on the indecent exposure charge after Sanderson failed to register as a sex offender, failed to attend sex offender treatment, and tested positive for marijuana.

Sanderson was sentenced for failure to register as a sex offender last fall, after he had already served 177 days in jail. Cresap sentenced him to a year in jail, with a requirement that he serve six months, and three years of supervised probation. The sentence was concurrent with the sentence for indecent exposure. Under the terms of the deal, the state dropped one failure to register as a sex offender felony charge.

Sanderson could be sentenced to the full five years in prison, minus time served, if his probation is revoked.