PORT ANGELES — A convicted sex offender from Port Angeles who remained at large Saturday has a criminal record in at least three states, according to court documents, including a history of failing to register his place of residence as required by law.
Philip Curtis Shelly, 52, cut off his satellite tracking bracelet and dropped it in a downtown mailbox Feb. 1, according to the Department of Corrections, triggering a warrant for his arrest.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Norah West said last week that corrections officers were working with local law enforcement in Northwest Washington to find Shelly, though she declined to give specifics.
“Sometime’s, it’s sharing intelligence; sometimes, it’s conducting interviews,” West said.
Gerald Brown, a Department of Corrections community corrections officer based in Port Angeles and once assigned to Shelly, said last week that Shelly could be headed to Graham in Pierce County, where he is thought to have a girlfriend.
Brown said the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office has been alerted to Shelly’s possible presence in its jurisdiction.
Shelly is described as white with brown hair and hazel eyes. He stands 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs between 140 and 160 pounds.
Shelly’s most recent registered address was the Riviera Inn on East Front Street, according to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
Shelly is a level-two sex offender, which means he has a moderate risk of reoffending.
Rape of child
Shelly pleaded guilty in 1998 to one count of first-degree rape of a child, a 3-year-old, and was released in 2009.
Brown said Shelly’s failure to comply with his monitoring requirements by cutting off his tracking bracelet last week is the most recent in a string of similar violations.
“This would be the third failure to register if convicted, which would be fairly serious,” Brown said.
Worked at fairs
In August last year, Shelly was arrested by Pacific County sheriff’s deputies after corrections officer found he had worked at the Clallam County Fair in Port Angeles and was on his way to work at the Pacific County Fair in South Bend.
In an interview then, Brown said Shelly was required by law to stay away from where children tend to congregate, which would include fairs.
Before the August arrest, Shelly pleaded guilty to failing to register as a sex offender in April 2012 and June 2010, both in Clallam County.
The June 2010 guilty plea stemmed from Shelly’s failure to report living at a Port Angeles residence for 26 nights in a row after registering as homeless.
As homeless, he would have been required to report daily to the Department of Corrections and weekly to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, according to court documents.
Excuses
In the April 2012 plea, Clallam County sheriff’s deputies said Shelly failed to report weekly to the Sheriff’s Office and gave excuses, including that he had been picking blackberries and lost track of time and that the alarm on his cellphone was broken, according to court documents.
While serving his 11-year prison term for child rape, Shelly failed to participate in sexual deviancy treatment, was found to have pornography depicting sexual conduct similar to that to which he pleaded guilty and assaulted a corrections officer, according to a report Brown filed in 2009 as part of Shelly’s release court proceedings.
Shelly also was convicted of unlawfully possessing a firearm in Clallam County in 1996 and forgery and possession of stolen property charges in 1979 and 1984 in Idaho, according to court records.
Anyone who sees Shelly is advised to phone 9-1-1 immediately and not approached him.
Information on his whereabouts can been given to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office by phoning 360-417-2459.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
