Sex Offender Wins $10M - Why I don’t care about the $10M

Most of you are probably aware of this news, but if you aren’t here’s the story in brief:

BOSTON (AP) - A man listed as one of the state’s most dangerous sex offender has won $10 million in the Massachusetts lottery, but the attention may have landed him in new trouble. Daniel Snay had been living and working in Massachusetts since 2004. In January, he paid $20 for a “Billion Dollar Blockbuster” scratch ticket at a suburban convenience store and hit the jackpot.

He picked up the first of 20 annual checks for $500,000 on Jan. 30. And the Massachusetts Lottery Commission said he gambled legally. But his story caught the attention of police in neighboring Connecticut, where Snay had lived for several years and where, officials said, he never informed authorities he was moving out of state.

Connecticut Trooper William Tate said Snay could face up to five years in prison if convicted of failing to notify authorities of his change of address, a felony. He said Snay hadn’t confirmed his address for the Connecticut sex offender registry since May 2004, though that state requires address verification every 90 days.

“We’re trying to determine when he moved, why he didn’t register with us and whether any charges are warranted,” Tate said.

Snay, 56, a divorced father of five, was convicted several times of indecent assault and battery from 1974 to 1987. Two of the assaults were on a child under the age of 14.

Snay’s lawyer, Joseph Fabbricotti, said that when Snay moved from Connecticut, he believed he had to register only in the state where he was moving. [...]

You can read the full article here.

While most people focus on the fact that he won $10M but may face 5 years of prison or even lose the $10M because he failed notifying authorities that he was moving out of Connecticut, I’d like to see it in a different way. Daniel Snay says he didn’t know he had to notify Connecticut, but instead he thought he had to notify only the new state he was moving in which is Massachusetts. According to its lawyer, he’s supposed to be registered in the Massachusetts Sex offender registry, so that would confirm it.

Where am I getting? The point I’m trying to make is that according to Connecticut’s law, you have to confirm your address every 90 days if you’re in the sex offender registry. Then, the guy went away for four years without anyone noticing and it took $10M for anyone to notice. You have a level 3 sex offender on your list (most dangerous or most likely to re-offend) and you forget about him because he fails to confirm his address? That’s kind of easy to get away from that registry. I mean, does anyone ever do follow ups on that? What’s the point of having a damn registry if you don’t check who fails to comply?

It would have been fairly easy to locate Daniel Snay, he was working legally with his real name in another state. I’m pretty sure this could have been solved fairly easily. Instead, the guy wins $10M and we realize he hasn’t confirmed his address for 4 years and realize he left Connecticut 4 years ago.

It’s sad to see that the authorities/government aren’t doing simple follow-ups on their registry and raise a flag when someone is missing for more than 90 days. Instead, they don’t give a damn and take the chance of letting him go.

It’s no rocket science, registry = comply to it. There’s probably a lot of similar things happening all around the country…