BOSTON – A Pittsfield man pleaded guilty on Friday, Nov. 12, 2021 in federal court in Springfield to failing to register as a sex offender.
Jarrett Woodruff, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of failure to register as a sex offender before U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni who scheduled sentencing for March 14, 2022. Woodruff was charged in November 2020.
In August 2018, Woodruff was convicted in Pittsfield District Court of three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years of age and was sentenced to 251 days in prison. Because Woodruff had already served 251 days during pre-trial detention, he was placed on probation with conditions and was required to register as a Level 3 sex offender. While on probation, Woodruff fled from Massachusetts to Ohio without notifying authorities of his whereabouts and did not register as a sex offender in Ohio.
In February 2019, a Massachusetts state court issued an arrest warrant for Woodruff on a new child sexual abuse charge. Woodruff subsequently fled from Ohio to Georgia, where he again did not register as a sex offender. In October 2020, he was located and approached by federal agents at an apartment in Dunwoody, Ga. Woodruff attempted to evade arrest by climbing into the adjoining neighbors’ apartment balconies before jumping to the ground where he was apprehended.
The charge of failure to register as a sex offender provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, up to a lifetime of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Acting United States Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell and Douglas Bartlett, Acting United States Marshal for the District of Massachusetts made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex J. Grant of Mendell’s Springfield Branch Office is prosecuting the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
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