Sex-offender roundup ordered
by governor

By STEVEN K. PAULSON
The Associated Press

DENVER - Concerned that some 300 sex offenders
cannot be located, Gov. Bill Owens issued an
executive order Thursday setting up a task force to
track down and arrest those who have not registered.

The task force of corrections officials, judges, the
attorney general and police must also streamline local
sex offender registries kept by 340 police and
sheriff’s agencies throughout the state.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation said more than
96 percent of convicted sex offenders have registered
with the agency as required by a law that took effect
July 1.

The agency said it knows of 8,421 convicted sex
offenders in the state and has verified that more than
8,100 are registered, CBI spokesman Mike Igoe
said Thursday. He said the agency was hoping to
complete verification of the list by the end of this
month.

In the city of Pueblo, of 295 known sex offenders, at
least 92 have failed to register as required by the law,
according to Det. Joe Garcia.

Garcia said he believes the state's estimates
concerning the number who have not registered are
too low.

"If they are saying that only 8,000 have the duty to
register, I think that is way too low," he said. "As far
as the 300 they say they can't find, if there are 300
that are unaccounted for I'm okay with that. But if
they are saying there are 300 that are not registered,
again I think that is too low."

Garcia said of Pueblo's 92 sex offenders who have
not registered, many of those simply have not been
located. He said some of them may have moved from
the county and there are others who may not know
that they are suppose to register because of recent
changes in the laws.

The state Supreme Court ruled last year that some
sex offenders were wrongly sentenced to lengthy
parole terms by the wrong statute. Last month, the
court voted 4-3 not to rehear arguments on two
cases affected by the ruling. The decision affects
more than 1,500 sex offenders.

Parole officers across Colorado told 155 sex
offenders that they no longer are on parole.
Department of Corrections officials also began
releasing 116 sex offenders who violated parole that
they should not have been serving.

Owens said that of the 71 offenders released last
week, ‘‘a significant number have failed to register
with local law enforcement authorities.’’

‘‘This same court ruling threatens to intensify the
problem in the months and years ahead,’’ he said in
his order.

Five of the 15 sex offenders from Southern Colorado
who were recently released from prison had been
listed as being in non-compliance on a CBI Website
Thursday afternoon. The non-compliance list was
removed from the Website late Thursday evening.

Of the five from Southern Colorado who had not
registered, three were listed from Pueblo County, one
from Chaffee and another from Rio Grande County.

Pueblo County Sheriff's Department personnel
confirmed that one of the men from Pueblo, Lonnie
Whitley, had registered last week.

The two other Puebloans listed, James Johnson and
Robert W. Wright, could be not confirmed as not
being registered.

Neither the Pueblo County sheriff's office nor Pueblo
police had a listing for Johnson. Pueblo police had a
listing for Wright, but had not received any
notification of his release from prison.

Attorney General Ken Salazar had asked
departments around the state to determine if sex
offenders had registered, and only 60 percent of the
departments reported back. Salazar said the state
had no authority to order departments to go out and
find them.