On my last post about Morgantown landlord Gary Walden’s history of harassment, a commenter questioned why he wasn’t registered as a sex offender in West Virginia.
If you were unaware, sex offenders have to register with the state they live in, and you can find this information on www.familywatchdog.us to see if there are any in your neighborhood.
I called West Virginia State Police Public Information Officer Sgt. Michael Baylous to find out when someone must register as a sex offender. He suggested I speak with Terri Swecker, the coordinator of the sex-offender registration for the West Virginia State Police.
Swecker said that a person must register as a sex offender when they have been convicted of first, second or third degree sexual abuse, which is rape or inappropriate touching. Sexual harassment is not a registrable offense.
According to West Virginia State Code §61-8B-7, a person is guilty of first-degree sexual abuse when a person subjects another person to sexual contact without his/her consent, and the lack of consent results from forcible compulsion. Sexual contact is defined as “any intentional touching, either directly or through clothing, of the breasts, buttocks, anus or any part of the sex organs of another person, or intentional touching of any part of another person’s body by the actor’s sex organs, where the victim is not married to the actor and the touching is done for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either party.”
(photo credit: http://www.legis.state.wv.us)
In 2006, Walden was sued by a tenant for sexual harassment. According to the West Virginia Record, the complaint stated “The Defendants have repeatedly subjected the Complainant to unlawful sexual harassment and have created a sexually hostile environment…”
According to the WV Record article:
- [Stacie] Summers says she sought to rent Apartment B in one of the Walden’s apartment buildings in Westover on Jan. 20, 2005. When she met Gary Walden at the apartment, she says he fondled her breasts.
- Summers says that Walden presented the lease, he again attempted to fondle her breasts. Summers says this prevented her from reading the full lease.
- Walden again tried to fondle her breasts, she says, when he drove her to an ATM machine to collect rent money.
- On another occasion, he tried to get one of his employees to touch Summers’ breasts, she says.
- In March 2005, Summers says she did not have rent money when Walden confronted her about it, and he told her “Well, you are going to have to give me some head.”
Walden settled the sexual harassment suit in 2008, and was required to pay $175,000 to his victims, and was barred from coming into contact with his tenants for eight years.
So, the short answer is that Walden did not have to register as a sexual offender because he was not convicted of sexual abuse – he reached a settlement in a sexual harassment case.
In case you haven’t been keeping up, Walden was arrested on Monday for entering a tenant’s apartment while she was sleeping. She woke up to find Walden rubbing her leg.
– Leann
Inspecting Sunnyside 