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March 18, 2010

Sex offender imprisoned after failure to register

By Julie Manganis

SALEM — A Level 3 sex offender was sent to prison for five years yesterday after admitting he didn't tell the state sex offender registry about where he was working — including a job at a Danvers supermarket.

At a hearing in Salem District Court, David Cox, 41, of Salem, pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to register as a sex offender. After he serves five years in state prison, he'll be on lifetime community parole.

For nearly a month, from August until September 2008, Cox worked at the Market Basket store in Danvers, but never told Danvers police as the law required, prosecutor Jana DiNatale said.

And a little more than a year earlier, Cox was working for a Lynn temporary agency called Labor Ready when he was sent to work at a Peabody business, Tucker Engineering. He never notified Peabody police that he was working in their city.

"I would like to say in my defense, my understanding is you register with your employer," Cox, sporting a shaved head with four-inch square patch of hair on the back that was braided into 12 sections, told the judge. "Labor Ready was my employer."

DiNatale pointed out that Cox got the job at Market Basket on his own, and not through any agency. And beyond that, Cox was simply wrong about the registration requirement, the prosecutor said.

It does not appear that either company knew of Cox's background.

His lawyer, Mark Schmidt, acknowledged to Judge John Lu that Cox has no defense for failing to tell Danvers police where he was working.

Cox's record includes a 1987 conviction in Oklahoma for attempted rape, assault with intent to rape, assault with a dangerous weapon and possessing a firearm during commission of a felony, as well as a 2003 conviction in Lynn for unnatural acts. He had also been convicted of failing to register as a sex offender in Lynn.

DiNatale said Cox was well aware of his obligation, listing a series of dates on which Cox registered with police in various communities where he lived and worked, and citing the notices he had signed.

DiNatale did drop one of the three counts against Cox yesterday, the result of plea negotiations. That charge alleged that Cox failed to tell Lynn police where he was living at one point.

Cox has been serving a three-year sentence for threatening to kill his girlfriend's mother in Salem after suspecting that she called police to ask if he was a sex offender.

The 62-year-old woman told police that Cox, holding a knife, told her he would kill her if he found out it was she who had called police on him.

He was found guilty of that offense in January.

But under the terms of yesterday's five-year prison sentence, Cox will be sent directly to prison, wiping out that sentence for the threats.

Cox's girlfriend was in court yesterday in support of him. She was alone.

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Sex offender imprisoned after failure to register
by By Julie Manganis , , Thu Mar 18, 2010, 09:02 AM EDT
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