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Prosecutors want sex predators to stay on registry
By Marc Kovac
COLUMBUS
Prosecutors in Trumbull County want the state’s high court to ensure sexual predators convicted before 2008 continue to register with law enforcement.
At issue is whether a subsequent law allowing offenders sentenced in 2008 or afterward to seek termination of their registration requirements applies to those convicted of similar crimes committed earlier.
The case has implications for the Trumbull County man named in the suit and potentially for thousands of other sex offenders across the state.
According to court documents, Aaron Von was convicted in 1997 in Colorado on one count of sexual assault of a child and one count of sexual assault. As part of his sentence, he was required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Von moved to Ohio in 2011, registering first in Mahoning County and then in Trumbull County. And in 2012, Von sought to terminate the registration requirements, according to documents.
Assistant Trumbull County Prosecutor LuWayne Annos argued Wednesday that Von was not eligible to make the application in the first place, since his Colorado conviction already called for lifetime registration.
Von, she said, is a sexual predator, not a Tier 1 sexual offender.
“It has been our position from Day 1 that you can’t remove him from the registry,” Annos said.
Annos asked justices to send Von back to the trial court for a determination of his offender classification. She also wants justices to clarify that other sexual predators are not eligible to cease their law-enforcement registration requirements.
That prompted a question about fairness from Justice Paul Pfeifer.
“We would end up, under your view of how this should be interpreted, with folks who have Megan’s Law offenses unable to get out of the registration requirements that subsequent offenders for the same kind of offenses would be able to help,” he said “You’ve got the oldest offenders who have not reoffended ... going to have a reporting requirement that more recent offenders on the same offenses would be able to lift.”
He added, “If more current offenders can get off but the oldest offenders can’t, how is that fair?”
Legal counsel for Von did not participate in oral arguments Wednesday.