A convicted child rapist from Minnesota was arrested by federal authorities in Maine on Wednesday on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.
Charles D. Roberson, 43, who had been living most recently in Hermon, was brought to U.S. District Court in Bangor on Wednesday to face the charge. Magistrate Judge John Nivison ordered Roberson held pending a detention hearing on Monday.
Roberson pleaded guilty in 2004 in Minnesota of raping a 6-year-old boy and served a nine-year sentence in state prison there, according to Minnesota state court records online.
Roberson failed to register as a sex offender in Minnesota by a deadline last July and moved to Maine sometime between then and November without registering as a sex offender here, according to records in federal court in Bangor.
The U.S. Marshals Service began searching for Roberson in January and discovered he no longer lived at his former address in St. Paul, Minnesota. A deputy marshal then tracked Roberson down by looking at his public postings on Facebook, where Roberson posted last Nov. 22 that he had started working as a line cook at Dysart’s Truck Stop in Hermon and posted again on Dec. 4 that he had moved to Hermon, according to an affidavit filed in court in Maine by U.S. Deputy Marshal Brian Doyle.
Doyle went to Dysart’s last month and obtained a copy of the job application that Roberson submitted last Nov. 2 on which Roberson falsely claimed he had never been convicted of a crime, according to the affidavit.
“The Dysart’s personnel office confirmed on or about February 2, 2016 that Roberson has been working 40 hours a week shifts as a line cook at the Hermon Maine location since November 18, 2015. Roberson has also posted pictures of himself (“selfies”) wearing his Dysart’s work uniform. His facebook selfies match his sex offender registration picture,” Doyle wrote in the affidavit.
If convicted of failing to register as a sex offender, Roberson faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
