PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Daviess County sex offender is facing charges in Pike County for allegedly failing to keep authorities apprised of his address.

Benjamin Alexander Simmons, 54, of Owensboro, is now facing a charge of failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements. That charge carries a sentence of up to five years in prison, if he is convicted.

Simmons pleaded guilty in 2024 to first-degree sexual abuse and meth possession and was given a three-year sentence. According to the sex offender registry, the victim in the case was 3 years old.

He had given his last address as Westcare’s Hal Rogers Recovery Center at Ashcamp, but authorities say he left that facility Oct. 28 and never updated his address. He was arrested last week on outstanding warrants out of Daviess County.

He is currently being held without bond in the Daviess County Detention Center.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Magoffin County man is heading back to prison, after he pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender.

Phillip Harmon, 42, of Salyersville, pleaded guilty to the charge back in January.

Court records in Scioto County, Ohio, indicate he pleaded guilty to rape in 2008 and served a 10-year sentence. In his plea agreement, he admits to moving from Ohio to Magoffin County in 2021, but never updating his sex offender registration.

At his sentencing hearing on Thursday, he was ordered to serve an additional 18 months in prison. Once he is released, he will remain under supervision for 10 years.

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PAINTSVILLE, Ky. — What began as an investigation into the theft of bicycles resulted in a Paintsville sex offender being arrested for failing to maintain his registration requirements.

Paintsville Police were called Sunday to a home on Second Street over a report that two bicycles had been stolen the previous evening. The homeowner was able to provide footage allegedly showing Jessie Lee Ward, 48, walking into the back yard and taking two bicycles worth a combined $500.

Police located Ward at his workplace and cited him for misdemeanor theft. He was able to return one of the bicycles at that time. He said another person had the other bike, but he would retrieve it and take it back to the owners.

Afterwards, police decided to check into sex offender status, because two young girls lived at the home where the theft occurred. They learned that Ward was not compliant with his registration requirements, after he pleaded guilty to second-degree rape of a 12-year-old in 2006. He received a 10-year sentence in that case.

Ward was found riding a bicycle on Sixth Street later that day and arrested him for failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements. He reportedly told police that he realized he had fallen out of compliance, but said he had mailed in paperwork to correct the issue.

Because he has previously been arrested for the same charge, Ward now faces 5-to-10 years in prison if he is convicted.

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HINDMAN, Ky. — A Knott County sex offender has been charged with not maintaining his registration requirements.

Stevie Shepherd, 62, of Hindman, was charged with failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements back in November, when the state was unable to verify his address. He wasn’t arrested until Monday, when he was pulled over for traffic violations on the Mountain Parkway in Wolfe County.

Shepherd pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse and third-degree sodomy of a 10-year-old in 2000. He was sentenced to three years in that case.

He now faces a sentence of 1-to-5 years in prison if convicted of failing to register.

He is currently being held in the Letcher County Jail.

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PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Magoffin County man has been indicted in federal court on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.

Phillip Harmon, 41, of Salyersville, was indicted on Thursday. Court records in Scioto County, Ohio, indicate he pleaded guilty to rape in 2008 and served a 10-year sentence. The indictment accuses him of failing to register as a sex offender for the past four years.

If convicted, he faces a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

Court records indicate he is currently being held in the Lorain Correction Institution, in Grafton, Ohio. The judge has issued an order for him to be transported to Pikeville for arraignment on Nov. 19.

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PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A Kentucky sex offender has been indicted in Pike County for not maintaining his registration requirements.

Thomas Craig, 47, was indicted on one count of failing to register relative to sexual offense and one count of persistent felony offender. Craig was convicted possessing and distributing child porn back in Muhlenberg County back in 2018.

Court records indicate he was a patient at Good Shepherd Health and Rehabilitation in Phelps last December, when police were called to the facility because he was allegedly harassing staff and patients.When police looked into the matter, they discovered he was wanted for being out of compliance with registration requirements.

Craig told police he had notified the manager of his halfway house that he had been discharged from the hospital to Good Shepherd for wound care, but police were unable to verify that claim.

Craig is currently being held without bond in the Pike County Detention Center.

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PAINTSVILLE, Ky. — An Ohio sex offender was arrested in Paintsville for not maintaining his registration requirements.

Jvonta Cameron Buckley, 35, currently of Paintsville but formerly from Columbus, pleaded guilty in 2016 to a federal charge of possessing child porn, for which he was sentenced to 100 months in prison. He was initially charged with sex trafficking by force, sex trafficking of children and production of child porn, but those charges were dropped in exchange for his plea.

As part of his conviction, he is required to register his address with the sex offender registry, but his last registered address was in Columbus.

Buckley is currently being held in the Big Sandy Regional Detention Center on a $50,000 cash bond.

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MARTIN, Ky. — A Floyd County sex offender has been arrested after police found him staying at a different address where a 12-year-old girl lives, after he said he was flooded out of his home.

The Floyd County Sheriff’s Office received a tip Feb. 25th that a sex offender might be staying at Warco Apartments in violation of his parole.

When deputies went to the apartment, a woman answered the door and told them he wasn’t there and she knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. However, she gave them permission to search the apartment, and they soon found Chadd Randall Risner, 33, of Grethel, hiding in a closet.

Risner pleaded guilty in 2016 to two counts of second-degree rape of a 12-year-old. He told police he knew he wasn’t supposed to be at the apartment, but he had been staying there for the past five days because his home was flooded.

Police then checked with the Sex Offender Registry as well as the Department of Probation and Parole and learned that he had never reported that he would be staying at the apartment.

Risner was arrested and charged with failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements, first offense. If convicted, he could be sentenced to 1-to-5 years in prison.

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LOUISA, Ky. — A Lawrence County man who has a history of not maintaining his sex offender registration has been arrested once again for not maintaining his sex offender registration.

Roy Osborne, 35, of Louisa, was arrested on Wednesday.

Osborne had been previously convicted of sexually abusing a 12-year-old in West Virginia. As part of his sentence, he was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, but he has repeatedly arrested for not doing so.

Since moving to Kentucky, he has been found guilty of failing to maintain sex offender registration requirements five times, in Boyd County in 2010, 2012 and 2016 and in McCracken County in 2019 and 2023.

He now faces the same charge in Lawrence County. Because he has already been convicted of the crime more than once, he faces a potential sentence of 5-to-10 years in prison, if he is convicted.

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PAINTSVILLE, Ky. — Deputies investigating a burglary case in Paintsville ended up arresting a sex offender for failing to maintain his registration requirements.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office was investigating a burglary at Perry Vanhoose Apartments last week and identified Michael Marcum, 51, as a person of interest.

While talking to him, they discovered he was wanted on a warrant out of Floyd County. They also learned that he was a sex offender whose last reported address was a homeless shelter in Lexington, not the apartment in Paintsville where he had been living with a woman.

Marcum was convicted of third-degree rape of a 16-year-old victim in Pike County back in 2008. He was given a suspended sentence in the case, but ordered to register as a sex offender for 20 years.

Marcum is now charged with failure to maintain sex offender registration, which could earn him another 1-to-5 years in prison, if he is convicted.

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