Fort Smith : New law helps to track sex offenders
Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006
FORT SMITH - The U. S. attorney's office and the U. S. Marshals Service in western Arkansas are working with local law enforcement to crack down on convicted sex offenders who come from other states but fail to register.
The Marshals Service arrested one man last month and issued a warrant Thursday on a second man for failing to register in Fort Smith as sex offenders.
The cases were aided by provisions in the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, Chief Deputy Marshal Mike Blevins said Monday.
Deputy marshal Dave Cook said Dustin Markel, 64, was arrested Thursday in Orlando, Fla., on a warrant issued in Fort Smith. Cook said Markel, who has had a string of sex-offense convictions since the 1960 s, failed to register as a sex offender when he moved from California to Arkansas.
Markel was supposed to go before a magistrate Monday in Orlando to determine his identity and the validity of the warrant in preparation for being returned to Arkansas, Blevins said.
The Marshals Service issued the warrant for Markel under the new federal law that President Bush signed in July. Among other things, it allows for federal prosecution of sex offenders who cross state lines and fail to register in their new residence.
The law "closed a huge loophole in sex-offender management,"Fort Smith Detective Wendall Sampson said.
Sampson, who heads the department's sex-offender section, said the law extends local law enforcement's reach in reeling in offenders who have moved to other parts of the country. Also, he said, the sentence for failing to register as a sex offender is stiffer for a federal conviction - 10 years - than the state penalty, which is four years.
People at Creekmore Park in Fort Smith became suspi- cious Sept. 26 when they saw Markel sitting on a park bench watching young girls at play, Sampson said.
They called police. When the responding officer checked Markel's criminal history, he found Markel had been designated in Florida as a mentally disordered sex offender.
Cook said Markel also had been convicted of sex crimes in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, California and Ohio.
Sampson was unable to locate and arrest Markel after establishing probable cause, so he turned to the Marshals Service for help. Cook said he was able to track down Markel, and federal authorities arrested him in Orlando on Cook's warrant.
Officials wouldn't say how long Markel had been living in Arkansas or what he was doing in Florida.
In the other case, Fort Smith police learned last month that Eugene Manning, 52, had been living in Fort Smith since January and failed to register as a sex offender from a 1996 conviction in Delaware.
Manning is charged in Sebastian County Circuit Court with failing to register, but Cook said the federal government may take over the prosecution under the Adam Walsh Act.
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