New fee for Allen County sex offenders starting April 1st

4-2-2013 Indiana:

Starting Monday, sex offenders in Allen County have to pay a $50 fee when they register every year. The Sheriff's Department said that will help pay for the costs associated with keeping offenders' addresses and other information current. For years sex offenders have been registering for free and the county has been picking up the tab. Now with the new fees they hope this will help cover at least some of the costs.

Monday, April 1, 2013 was the first day sex offenders had to pay up.

"About 15 today have come in but, there have been people coming in and making a lot of phone calls prior to today," Detective Mike Smothermon said.

Thanks to a new county ordinance, $50 is due on their normal, annual registration date.

"It's not due today. The ordinance was enacted and effective today's date, but the fee is not due until their actual registration date."

The small department of detectives and office workers are responsible for keeping information on almost 400 sex offenders in Allen County current.

"There are vehicle maintenance costs and gas for all of the address verifications that we do. The man hours that are spent on just everything that we do as far as investigations and registrations."

Now that they're charging sex offenders the fee it will help offset some of the costs the county has historically had to pay.

"When the fee is due, it's due. If they absolutely can't pay it we'll deal with that later. If it has got to be small claims court type of an issue but it's a criminal offense and we will arrest them for failure to register if they just don't show up."

Detective Smothermon said not showing up because you can't pay won't fly.

"The requirement to register is absolute whether you have the money to pay the fee or not if you don't show up it's not an excuse in court to say well 'I couldn't pay the fee so I just didn't come in.'"

Smothermon said sex offenders should know when their annual registration date is. Anyone with questions can call their office at 260-449-3074. ..Source.. by Megan Reust