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Sex offenders rounded up

A sheriff's sweep targets those who failed to register.

By ANNE LINDBERG
Published October 29, 2006

The two men sat chatting on white plastic chairs in the front yard of a house in southern St. Petersburg.

Suddenly, from the cool darkness, uniformed deputies appeared and put handcuffs on them. A television cameraman on the deputies' heels lit up the scene.

One of the men, Noah Powell, was told to kneel on the grass with his ankles crossed. Deputies had come to arrest Powell, a convicted sexual predator, because he had not kept authorities informed of his address.

He was one of six sexual predators or offenders arrested Thursday and charged with the felony of failing to register, as required by the Jessica Lunsford Act.

Powell also was charged with one count of cocaine possession.

Powell, 41, of 2610 Ninth St. was convicted in 1995 of committing sexual battery while threatening to use or using force or a deadly weapon. Powell was the only sexual predator. The rest were sexual offenders.

The other man, Donald Byrd, was told to sit in the chair. Shaking violently, Byrd began cursing, the words flowing so rapidly that they came out as one long word. Soon, he, too, was wearing handcuffs and facing charges of cocaine and drug paraphernalia possession.

Roy Brown, the father of Amanda Brown, who was kidnapped and murdered at age 7 in 1998, watched the arrests from a neighboring yard with two federal marshals.

Brown, who has become a child protection activist, had come to watch and learn. But he also wanted to thank the deputies and officers for their efforts in making sure that sexual predators and offenders obey the law.

Amanda's killer, Willie Crain, had a history of child molestation.

"It's an honor for me" to be here, he said.

Thursday's sweep was the first since the sheriff took over the job of monitoring registered sex predators and offenders countywide in April. Deputies got the idea of using a sweep when they noticed that there were 10 in a limited geographic area who had failed to re-register, Lt. Bryan Gavin said.

Having the sweep publicized, Gavin said, would help all offenders and predators understand that Sheriff Jim Coats is serious about making sure the law is enforced.

Once the offenders were arrested, they were taken to the parking lot of the St. Petersburg Police Department on Central Avenue, where they sat at a small folding table while paperwork was filled out. Then they were searched before they were taken as a group to the Pinellas County Jail in a sheriff's van.

Deputies did not catch all 10 on Thursday night.

One turned himself in Wednesday. Another is dead. Another is a long-distance trucker who was out of the county. Deputies planned to arrest him Friday.

[Last modified October 28, 2006, 19:24:30]