Long Beach, Failure to Register As a Sex Offender, 90 Days

Our client was charged in Long Beach Superior Court with failure to register as a sex offender, arising out of a prior case he had in the Torrance Superior Court wherein he was convicted and required to register as a sex offender under Penal Code § 290. The client lived in Long Beach and kept in contact with the Long Beach Police Department for reporting purposes under § 290.

Summary in 50 Words or Less: Client, a registered sex offender, house sits for a fellow church member, so is not found at his residence, triggering a failure to register case in Long Beach, as well as a violation of probation in Torrance. The Long Beach judge wanted to give our client two years in state prison, but Greg able to transfer Long Beach case to Torrance and resolve case for time-served.

Since he did this while still on felony probation, a probation violation was also filed in the Torrance Superior Court.

The facts of the failure to update his address were fairly innocent. Our client was house sitting for a friend from church for a few weeks and living at the friend’s home, but did not advise the Long Beach Police Department of this to add his friend’s home address as his own address in the sex offender database. Our client’s stay at the friend’s home was truly temporary, but the rules are clear and have no provision for temporary stays lasting longer than five days.

As it is a Los Angeles County rule that probation violation matters, when coupled with an independent, new case in another courthouse, “travel” to the other court for consolidation with the other new case. Therefore, the probation violation from Torrance was transferred to Long Beach.

When the client’s family found out about the violation, they went with the client (six people in total) to the Long Beach Police Department in hopes of explaining the house-sitting for a fellow-church member.

The Long Beach Police Department was not swayed that this violation was excused and took the client into custody in front of his parents, sisters and brothers, much to their horror.

The family then called Greg Hill & Associates and met with Greg. They explained what had happened and Greg Hill visited the client in jail the very same day, which happened to be a Sunday.

---