SHREVEPORT, La. - United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley announced today that a Shreveport man was sentenced to 24 months in prison for failing to update his sex offender registration when he moved.
Justin Ray Merritt, 33, of Shreveport, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter on one count of failure to update his sex offender registration. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release. According to evidence presented at the Feb. 26, 2015 guilty plea, Merritt reported his residence to be in Shreveport in Dec. 17, 2013 as required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act. Merritt was discovered living in Texarkana, Texas, on Aug. 14, 2014. He admitted to not updating his sex offender registration information when moving to Texarkana and to have been living there since November of 2013. He was convicted in 2004 of felony carnal knowledge of a juvenile in Caddo Parish, which requires 15 years of sex offender registration.
The U.S. Marshals Service and Louisiana Probation and Parole conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Seth D. Reeg prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
