Update: offender plea garners attention

12-28-2009 Georgia:

In this economy finding a job is tough, and as a registered sex offender — it’s almost impossible.

The Rome News-Tribune featured Otto Jabar Orr’s predicament as a registered sex offender in October. Orr wants to work with-

in the system but is finding that increasingly difficult.

The Christmas season has been a keen reminder of his situation: no job equals no money, which in turn means no home and no ability to provide for his children.

Through the charity of others, he has a place to stay and some food, but for a 27 year-old able-bodied man who wants to work that situation can chafe.

“I’m still looking, but everything I’ve had I couldn’t do because the restrictions don’t let me work there,” Otto Orr said.

Right now he’s living with Roger Covington — president of a local prison ministry — and helping him work on cars to pay his way.

Orr’s current entanglement with the legal system began at age 18, when he pleaded guilty to a statutory rape charge filed against him when he was 17. Although the sex was consensual, the girl was underage.

Orr said he’s been clean and arrest-free for four years. He’s been trying to comply with his probation requirements and was working for some time before being laid off.

The article garnered some international attention, and two French journalists from Zone Interdite, a news show, flew in to interview Orr. The show concerns the sex offender registry in the U.S., said journalist Pierre Toury.

“We’re trying to understand how it works and who is on it,” Toury said.

“It is about the law and how it has been applied — and the consequences of people who are not really meant to be on it.”

Toury said they also traveled to Florida to interview those who, because of that state’s laws, are forced to live under a bridge.

“Lawmakers need to decide the difference between the rapers and the others,” Toury said. “It’s not the best thing for 50 percent on the registry.”

He said the documentary will air sometime in March on the station M6 in France. ..Source.. John Bailey