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Published: June 20, 2008 10:14 am
Clark County looking for 17 sex offenders
By MATT THACKER
Matt.Thacker@newsandtribune.com
The Clark County Sheriff’s Department is asking for the community’s help in locating 17 sex offenders who have failed to register.
“They are required by law to register with us,” Clark County Sheriff Danny Rodden said.
They must share their home and work addresses as well as any other pertinent information, he said. As of July 1, they also have to give e-mail addresses and instant messenger names.
Sex offenders are visited at home at least once a year as required by law, but Rodden said they try to visit at least once every six months at random. Violent offenders are visited every 90 days.
Clark County has 207 registered offenders. There are warrants out for 17 people who have failed to register as sex offenders. They include: William Smith, Michael Taylor, Danny Williams, Carlos Standifer, Sanford Walker, Timothy McPherson, Richard Fitzgerald, Antonio David, Robert Banks, Joseph Colyer, John Ellis, Ricky Couts, Jonathan Denning, Clifford Smith, Sean Howard, Chris Hofmeister and Shevonne Sears.
There were originally 42 who had failed to register, and four men turned themselves in recently. The Sheriff’s Department will issue 21 more warrants in the near future.
Rodden said the number of offenders who have not registered has increased. He said one of the reasons for the increased number of people failing to register is because of a new law which requires more offenders to register for life rather than 10 years. It’s also possible that some people have forgotten.
“Maybe it’s gotten off everybody’s front burner,” Rodden said.
Still, they have to consider all offenders as potential safety threats.
“By far, the majority of the offenders on the list are child molesters,” Lt. Randy Burton said.
Rodden said they have a task force which they sent out this week to try to track down some of the offenders, but many of them move frequently and can be difficult to track.
Failure to register as a sex offender is a class D felony.
Anyone who has information about any of the sex offenders is asked to call 812-280-2276.
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