A man convicted in Lewis County Superior Court in 2021 for interacting with a decoy account for a 15-year-old boy on a dating website and planning to meet the boy for sex was charged Friday for allegedly failing to register as a sex offender.
Dennis Fred Thompson, 69, was booked into the Lewis County Jail at 8:40 p.m. on Oct. 30, according to jail records, after he was picked up on a separate Department of Corrections warrant.
This is Thompson’s second failure-to-register charge since he was convicted for two counts of communication with a minor for immoral purposes in September 2021. In that case, he was released after he was sentenced to 77 days in jail with credit for 77 days served and ordered to remain on probation for 12 months.
He was charged on Aug. 2, 2024, for failing to properly register in July.
He pleaded guilty on Aug. 28 and was sentenced to 45 days in prison with credit for 19 days served.
While in custody, he was charged with possession of a controlled substance while in a county or local correctional facility for having meth hidden in his sock during a random search on Aug. 20.
He entered a guilty plea to that charge on Aug. 28 and was sentenced to 45 days in prison with credit for seven days served.
Thompson was released from the Lewis County Jail on Sept. 20 and registered his address as being in the 100 block of Blacksmith Road in Rochester.
On Oct. 15, a Lewis County Sheriff’s Office detective reportedly “received information that Thompson was not residing, and had never resided, at the Blacksmith Road address,” according to court documents.
When questioned following his Oct. 30 arrest, Thompson allegedly “admitted he has never resided at the Blacksmith address and knew he should have registered as a transient since he was staying at a shelter on Gold Street in Centralia,” according to court documents.
He was charged in Lewis County Superior Court with one count of failure to register as a sex offender on Nov. 1.
Bail is set at $10,000.
Arraignment is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 7.
