State law requires that all sexually violent predators check in every 90 days or if they move.
PHILLIPS – A violent sexual predator, who in September 1998 raped a women at a camp in Madrid, was arrested over the weekend and charged with not registering as a sex offender.
Craig Brackett, 49, was arrested Saturday at his home where he lives with his wife and two children on the Toothaker Pond Road in Phillips by Franklin County Sheriff’s Department deputies Brent Howard and Sandy Burke and Sgt. Steven Lowell.
The arrest was the result of a month-long investigation by Sheriff’s Department sexual assault investigator Detective David St. Laurent.
St. Laurent said he learned that Brackett had been living in Eustis at least since January, yet never registered his new address with the department as mandated by the state.
According to St. Laurent, state law requires that all sexually violent predators check in with their local law enforcement agency every 90 days or if they move, in order to be fingerprinted and have a new photograph taken for police files. That protocol, he said, “is a way of keeping track of their movements” and “making the public aware of their past actions.”
St. Laurent estimated that each year, he has to check in with more than 30 sex offenders in the county not including those who are registered in Farmington, Wilton and Jay.
The state contacted Brackett, who was convicted of unlawful sexual contact after the 1998 incident, by mail telling him to register. More recently, St. Laurent said, he left a note at Brackett’s home in Eustis telling him he must register.
St. Laurent said he then learned from a Maine state trooper that Brackett was living in Phillips as of late February and had not yet registered. A warrant was issued Friday and by Saturday afternoon, Brackett was behind bars.
That same day, Brackett posted $5,000 unsecured bail. He is slated to appear in court on May 24 on misdemeanor charges of failure to register as a sex offender.
According to St. Laurent, Brackett did finally register Monday morning.
sdepoy@sunjournal.com
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