BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A sex offender arrested for not reporting his address to police three weeks after he was released from prison told a court he didn’t provide an address because he didn’t have a place to live.

Douglas Bryant was returned to jail on Friday after being charged with a misdemeanor of failing to comply with Vermont’s sex offender registry laws.

Bryant told court officials he attempted to notify authorities of his new location, but he is homeless and the best he could come up with was a Burlington beach.

Unable to comply with the registry requirements, Bryant was returned to jail Friday until he could find a place to live. He is being held on $2,500 bail.

“We do not think that living on a beach is a sufficient physical residence for the police to be able to check on him,” prosecutor Babette Boyd said in court.Bryant got out of jail in mid-March.

after completing a 10-year sentence for raping a Burlington woman.

Burlington police took the unusual step of making public his release and his status as a sex offender, because he was considered “very violent, very aggressive, very dangerous.”

He stayed in a Committee on Temporary Shelter bed for a while. He was kicked out for making inappropriate comments to female staff, Boyd said. Bryant shook his head in disagreement in court Friday when Boyd said that.

COTS then paid for Bryant, who is unemployed and receives welfare, to spend a night at the North Star Motel in Shelburne, public defender Martin Maley said. Police checked on him there, according to court documents. He checked out the next day, April 2.

Bryant also made an appointment to see a psychotherapist next week, Maley said. Bryant refused sex offender treatment programs while in jail for the last decade.

Bryant has had trouble finding a place to live, as no one will take him in, Maley said. Bryant would be willing to check in with police once or twice a day and submit to alcohol screenings in exchange for staying out of jail, Maley said.

AP-ES-04-10-04 1300EDT