Sex offender charged with failing to register

YOUNGSTOWN -- Boardman police arrested a convicted sex offender on a city warrant charging him with failing to register as a sex offender.
Charles Gorham, 37, of West Dewey Avenue, remained in the Mahoning County Jail Friday in lieu of $15,000 bond. He is set to appear at a preliminary hearing before municipal court Judge Elizabeth Kobly Thursday.
Gorham had been charged earlier this year with failure to register as a sex offender when he moved from a house in McDonald. A grand jury in Trumbull County elected not to indict him on that charge.
He had to leave the McDonald house, where his sister lives, because of the house's proximity to a school. Anyone determined by a court to be a sexual predator is prohibited from living within 1,000 feet of a school.
On Wednesday evening, Boardman police officers saw a woman lying on the ground and a man, later identified as Gorham, waving his arms as if arguing in Mathews Square Plaza.
The officer asked the woman if everything was OK and she said they were homeless and needed a ride. The officer asked them for identification. Gorham provided a different first name but his actual birth date and Social Security number.
Township police discovered the warrant from Youngstown for failure to register as a sex offender. After initially insisting that he wasn't Charles Gorham, he eventually acknowledged his name.
They found two suspected crack pipes in his pants pocket and charged him with misdemeanor counts of possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing official business. He is scheduled to appear in Mahoning County Court in Boardman next month on those charges.