A registered sex offender was arrested on St. Croix, the V.I. Attorney General’s Office announced Tuesday.
Omari Akeem Horton, 29, was arrested on a warrant issued Dec. 16 for failure to comply with registration requirements for sex offenders in the Virgin Islands and failure to comply with the Sex Offender Registry, according to the release.
On May 15, 2015, Horton was convicted of unlawful sexual contact in the first degree, it said. He is a Tier 3 offender and is mandated to register every three months for the remainder of his life. His first registration date at the DOJ was on Oct. 15, 2015, the release stated.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, Horton failed to appear in person at the Department of Justice’s main office on Oct. 17. The date fell on a Saturday. However, according to V.I. law, if the registration date falls on a weekend, the offenders are given the option to register the Friday before the registration date or the following Monday.
Horton failed to appear on the Friday before and the following Monday, the release stated. Additionally, he failed to update his place of residency within the three days mandated by law, it said.
Horton was booked and turned over to the custody of the Bureau of Corrections and his advice of rights hearing was scheduled for Wednesday.
A registered sexual offender must notify the Justice Department of their name, residence, temporary lodging information, vehicle information, internet identifiers, telephone numbers, school information, and employment status.
A team of special agents from the department and Sexual Offender Registry unit, with the assistance of U.S. Marshals and other local and federal agencies, routinely conducts unannounced inspections of registered sexual offenders to verify their locations and other personal information, such as their work and home addresses, according to Tuesday’s release.
The penalty for failing to register, or not keeping their registration current, is a fine of not less than $3,000 nor more than $5,000, or imprisonment for not less than three months nor more than two years, or both, the department said.
The law also provides that it is an offense to assist a sex offender to evade the registration requirements, which carries a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $2,000, imprisonment for not more than six months, or both.
The sex offender registry is available for public view at https://usvi.nsopw.gov.
