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 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Sex registry snafu

Web posted June 13, 2000

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Editor, The Chronicle

An Augusta girl was victimized because a convicted sex offender's name never made it to the state's Sex Offender Registry. The girl's family invited Daniel T. Shaffer to move in with them last January until he could find a place of his own to live.

Had his name been on the list, the family might have heard they'd brought a sex offender into their home.

Not long after they did, the couple's 13-year-old daughter reported she was awakened one night by Shaffer inappropriately touching her - an incident that resulted in Shaffer's conviction for sexual battery earlier this month by a Richmond County jury.

This was not, however, the first time Shaffer had been convicted of such an offense. There had been other ugly incidents involving adolescent girls dating back to 1993, said assistant District Attorney Jason Troina.

In 1996, a Richmond County State Court found Shaffer guilty of one count of sexual battery against a teen-age girl, after which he pleaded guilty to an additional sexual battery charge and two counts of simple battery.

He was sentenced to 18 months in jail followed by 18 months of probation, but the family who invited him to live with them didn't know about any of this. Although they might not have checked the list, word gets around about who is on it, and they might have found out in time.

The failure of his name to appear therein represents a breakdown in the system. We hope that breakdown is an isolated incident, rather than part of a larger pattern.

The court conviction data was sent to the state's Department of Corrections, but the agency's computer system only shows Shaffer's earlier conviction on simple battery, but not sexual battery.

Had that information been available, the jury this month might have found him guilty of felony child molestation, punishable by a 20-year prison term.

Instead he was convicted of the lesser, misdemeanor offense for which he was given one year in jail, with credit for the three months he served while awaiting trial without bond.