AUGUSTA – Five people, either registered sex offenders or their partners, testified Monday on two bills seeking to alter the way the online registry is displayed.

One bill would focus the Maine Sex Offender Registry Web site on the most dangerous offenders, the other would examine the types of offenses that require an offender to register with the state.

House Majority Whip Sean Faircloth, D-Bangor, sponsored the bill to refocus the Web site. He made the distinction between the registry and the Web site. Low-risk people can still be on the registry and be made visible only to law enforcement, instead of being thrust into the public eye, he told the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Also heard was a bill to establish a map on the Web site to show where offenders are located.

Kristen Gulliford of Lewiston said she lives with someone on the registry. The offender had consensual sex with his girlfriend when he was 18 and she was a minor. He was convicted of unlawful sexual contact, and is now a 10-year registrant.

Gulliford said because of that, she’s suffered. The couple had to live in a cockroach-infested apartment because no one would rent to them, she said.

Allyx Cochran of Canaan said he was in a similar situation.

“When I was a teenager I went on a date with a teenage girl,” he said. “A week after the date, she cried foul play. Being a teenager and scared I took bad counsel and plead nolo to gross sexual misconduct. I’ve spent 19 years trying to put this behind me.”

Basil Rehill of Brownfield said he was convicted of open and gross lewdness in Massachusetts. Had it occurred in Maine, he would not have landed on the registry.

Massachusetts, however, has a tiered system where Rehill was on the lowest rank. Since he fell into the ranks there, it was transferred to Maine, he told the committee.

“The victim was over the age of 18,” he said. “I lost my job; my employer decided I was dishonest.”

Raymond Roberts of Harmony expressed concern over the Easter Sunday slayings of two sex offenders last year. He testified against a bill that would instruct the Department of Public Safety to put a map on the registry Web site.

“He had time enough to murder anyone of us on that list…” Roberts said in a written statement, referring to Stephen Marshall of Nova Scotia, who shot himself to death on a bus in Boston. “Very easy to get the name and town, then check the phone book online to get the address and phone number. Now you want to make it easier.”

Deb Poirier, who declined to say where she is from, scorned the committee members for making “bad law.” Her husband is on the list.

“I resent those of you who never considered me (in making the policy),” she told the committee. “My daughter and I are forced to face the same humiliation as my husband.”

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