Grand jury indicts sex offender for "friending"

2-22-2012 North Carolina:

A grand jury recently indicted a convicted sex offender authorities say chose the wrong kind of friends.

A grand jury meets behind closed doors to consider if enough evidence is present for a case to be heard in Superior Court.

On Jan. 23, the panel indicted 44-year-old Vincent Wayne Vaughn of Haley Drive in Nebo with two sex offender violations, one for using a social website and another for failing to report a change of address.

Vaughn is a registered sex offender, having been convicted in Catawba County on Aug. 3, 2004, of one count of taking indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to 60 months on probation.

McDowell County Sheriff’s Office administrators received information last month that Vaughn had set up a Facebook page under his mother’s name, according to Capt. Ricky Crisp.

Further investigation led deputies to discover that Vaughn had had the Facebook page for about two weeks and had “friended” eight people on the site. All were young females, the captain stated.

Around that time, The McDowell News, as part of an ongoing feature, published a story about sex offender registry updates. The registry had Vaughn living at 1690 Airport Road in Marion.

After seeing the newspaper article, the landlord of the Airport Road property called the Sheriff’s Office and informed them that Vaughn moved on Dec. 31. Crisp stated Vaughn never reported that he had a new address. ..Source.. by Richelle Bailey