Submitted by Del Norte County District Attorney, Dale Trigg – March 2, 2017 –
The Del Norte District Attorney’s Office announced that late yesterday afternoon, a Del Norte County jury found Roger Lee Roberts (54) of Crescent City guilty of a total of 20 of 21 separate charges and allegations related to conduct that occurred between May, 2015 and September, 2015 involving a 15 year old female. The charges were as follows: ten counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with the minor, one special allegation of causing great bodily injury for impregnating the minor, four counts of furnishing methamphetamine to the minor (each with special allegations regarding the age difference) and that the Defendant had two prior convictions for lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 for crimes committed in 1987 and 2000. Both of the Defendant’s prior victims testified as did the victim in the present case. The jury did not find that the Defendant, by impregnating the minor, had inflicted great bodily injury upon her. The minor gave birth to a baby in May, 2016 and paternity was confirmed to the Defendant through DNA testing. The jury did not conclude that the pregnancy amounted to great bodily injury.
The Defendant has been in the Del Norte County Jail since September, 2016. He will be sentenced on March 30, 2017 by the Honorable William H. Follett. District Attorney Dale P. Trigg, who personally handled all stages of the prosecution, will ask Judge Follett to sentence the Defendant to serve 350 years to life in state prison, which is his maximum possible exposure according to the District Attorney who never extended a plea offer to the Defendant in the case.
“This Defendant has demonstrated a pattern of behavior over the last thirty years that makes it abundantly clear that juvenile females are not safe in his presence,” said Trigg. “First and foremost, I want to express my personal gratitude and admiration to the three known victims of this predator for having the incredible courage to face him in the courtroom and tell the jury what he did to them,” said Trigg.
District Attorney Trigg also wants to recognize Sgt. Richard Griffin of the Del Norte Sheriff’s Office for his work as the investigating officer in the case.
Thank you Sgt. Griffin for your fine work.
I agree with the concerned citizen. A major point I would like to emphasize is, if all “offenders” are rated the same it seems to me money spent for oversight would be the same. I know of a couple where she was 16.5 and he was 18 when she became pregnant and they are still married and he is still a sex offender 15 years later. Any funds spent on him for oversight should be spent to protect the public from creeps like this guy Roberts. Many people make offensive mistakes under the influence of being young, dumb, and full of desire. Not to mention drugs and peer pressure. After 5 or 10 years with no further incidence remove them from the list and spend that money for castration on repeat offenders.
If there is a clear case for the argument for a tiered registry, it’s now. California is 1 of only 4 States that do not have a tiered registry. Senate Bill 695 aims to bring back a sense of who’s dangerous and who’s not, by using empirical evidence based evaluation to remove those off the registry who pose no real danger to society. The CA DOJ sanctioned CA SOMB, the California Sex Offender Management Board, is standing behind the concept of Tiered registries. It works in every state it’s used in. The idea is simple: Those who are are likely to re-offend would remain on the registry for life. Those who don’t, would be removed from the registry after a certain number of years. Various levels of classification based on a person’s history and other information help determine that classification.
The sex offender registry, especially in Florida, Texas and California, the 3 largest states with the largest populations have way too many sex offenders on the registry who do not pose any kind of danger to society, meaning that people who visit the registry do not have a clear understanding who is dangerous and who is not.
A powerful Civil Rights attorney fought California to force dates of convictions and release from prison to appear on the profiles of each sex offender listed. It was her work that is helping to improve public safety by helping people better understand who’s dangerous and who is not. Obviously someone who may have committed a crime nearly two decades ago is not really a threat to anyone yet a repeat offender is. Certain types of behavior also provides a good indicator if a person is likely to reoffend.
My blood is boiling over this man who was convicted of a sex crime, only to go on later and commit another, only to go on and commit yet another. His first conviction was when he was around 25 years old with his victim being at least 9 years younger than him. (He would have been born in 62-63). In the year 2000, he would have been 37-38 years old, this second time with the age gap being a whopping 23+ difference. So at ~52 years of age he was involved with a 15 year old, with the age gap of 37+ years. The first clue he should have been isolated from members of the public should have been after the second situation because it was clear at that point he is a true predator. He is not your run of the mill garden variety one time offender.
THIS GUY IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF 3 TIME LOSER. In my opinion, he should have been placed into mandatory civil commitment after the second conviction and forced into mandatory treatment. In 2000, treatment programs existed in both Brookings Oregon and Eureka California. The fact this guy went on to commit yet another sex crime a 3rd time tells me he never attended any kind of treatment program because if he had, they would have likely would have recommend him to be civilly committed. Keep in mind doctors and therapists are mandatory reporters. Those programs also make use of polygraph machines to help catch deceitful patients.
Luckily, for at least sex offenders, our justice system realizes that 3 times is enough. He’s the reason we need a tiered registry. People need to know who the dangerous ones are. It’s impossible to know who the dangerous ones are when everyone is labeled and treated the same way.
KOBI TV in Eureka is reporting that he’s facing 81 years in prison.
https://kobi5.com/news/crescent-city-man-accused-of-sexually-abusing-teenage-girl-32942/
Anyone interested in updates to Senate Bill 695 should visit: http://all4consolaws.org/2017/02/tiered-registry-bill-introduced-as-senate-bill-695/
The official bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB695
More on this story at http://www.lostcoastoutpost.com