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Press Release

Mansfield Man Sentenced for Failure to Register as a Sex Offender

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Massachusetts
Defendant was previously convicted in Virginia of sexual battery on a child

BOSTON – A Mansfield man was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for failure to register as a sex offender.

Lawrence Sheedy, 45, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns to two years in prison and five years of supervised release. In November 2018, Sheedy pleaded guilty to one count of failure to register as a sex offender. Sheedy was indicted in May 2018 and has been in federal custody since completing a state sentence in January 2019.

In 2004, Sheedy was convicted in Virginia of one count of sexual battery on a child less than thirteen years of age and sentenced to 20 years in prison, with four years to serve and the balance suspended for 20 years of probation. As a result, under Virginia law, Sheedy was required to register as a sex offender for life, and required by the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction where he resided or worked. After his release from prison on this offense, Sheedy was convicted of other offenses and served additional time in prison.

In 2017, after his most recent release from prison, Sheedy left Virginia without the permission of the probation department, and moved to Massachusetts, where he lived in Mansfield and eventually worked in Foxborough. He did not inform authorities in Virginia that he had moved, and did not register as a sex offender in Massachusetts. In March 2018, Sheedy was arrested for an unrelated state offense, and discovered to be in violation of probation out of Virginia.  Law enforcement also learned that Sheedy had not registered, as required by law, with the Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board.

United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling and John Gibbons, U.S. Marshal for the District of Massachusetts made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elianna J. Nuzum of Lelling’s Major Crimes Unit prosecuted the case.

 

Updated November 22, 2019

Topic
Project Safe Childhood