Sex offenders arrested for not registering

By By Georgia E. Frye / staff writer
August 27, 2004
The Lauderdale County Sheriff's Department this week charged eight people for failure to register as sex offenders. The arrests were part of a six-county sting to round up those who have not complied with state law.
Earlier this week, Attorney General Jim Hood and State Department of Public Safety Commissioner Rusty Fortenberry contacted sheriffs and asked them to help track unregistered sex offenders.
Hood and Fortenberry held news conferences in Tupelo, Gulfport and Vicksburg Thursday to announce the initiative.
In total, law enforcement officers were looking for 55 offenders in Lauderdale, Harrison, Warren, Washington, Lee and Forrest counties.
Lauderdale County originally had 10 people on its list. Sheriff Sollie said the local search was conducted by his deputies and members of the East Mississippi Drug Task Force.
Of the eight charged, Sollie said, two were already in custody at the Lauderdale County Detention Facility for unrelated arrests. One offender on Lauderdale County's list has moved to another county and will be served with an arrest warrant there. The final name on the list belonged to a sex offender who actually was in compliance and had mistakenly been included.
A 1994 law requires individuals convicted of certain sex-related crimes to register with the Department of Public Safety. The law applies to people who were convicted in Mississippi as well those convicted in another state who later moved to Mississippi.
In addition to initially registering as sex offenders, these individuals are required to re-register every 90 days and notify the Department of Public Safety if they change their address. There are about 3,000 offenders on the registry.
Sollie said Fortenberry may ask the state Legislature next year to change the registration process because many feel the current system is not working.
People who fail to do so face a $5,000 bond and a maximum of five years in prison.
Those charged this week in Lauderdale County for failure to register as sex offenders who were not already in custody at the jail are:
Daryl Barfield, 37, 819 30th Ave.;
Adolphus Coleman, 43, 2008 Willow Bend Drive;
Douglas Dickerson, 51, 220 Highway 487, Sebastopol;
Willie Dunningan, 47, 4208 South St.;
Michael Hairston, 52, 2611 10th St.
Marquez Harris, 30, 2305 D St.;
William Harris, 40, 2419 22nd St.; and
Willie Solomon, 29, 107 71st Place.
To review information about sex offenders known
to be living in Lauderdale County, visit the Mississippi Department of Public Safety's sex offender registry Web site at www.sor.mdps.state.ms.us.