Enid Man To Serve 36 Months In Federal Prison For Failure To Register As A Sex Offender

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – Sanford C. Coats, United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, announced that WILLIAM K. ECHOLS, 28, of Enid, Oklahoma, was sentenced today by United States District Judge Stephen P. Friot to serve 36 months in prison for failure to register as a sex offender. Upon his release, Echols will be under the Supervision of United States Probation Office for ten years.

After traveling with the carnival around the United States, Echols was discovered in Enid, Oklahoma, by the United States Marshals after an anonymous tip through the website TipSoft.com. Echols was subsequently indicted by the federal grand jury in April of 2012 and charged with failing to register as a sex offender. Echols was required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (Adam Walsh Act) following his 2004 conviction in Trinity County Superior Court in California for Molesting a Child. In August of 2012, Echols entered a guilty plea to the charge in the indictment of failing to register as a sex offender. The defendant also has four prior convictions for failing to register as a sex offender in Nebraska, California, and Oregon.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorneys Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit .

The case was investigated by the United States Marshals Service and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Don Gifford.