Marion man sentenced to prison for failing to register as a sex offender
A Marion County man has been sentenced to prison for not registering as a sex offender as required by terms of his probation and Ohio law.
Anthony J. Purvis, age 24, Marion, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of failure to register as a sex offender with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office per the terms of probation related to a conviction for a previous offense. He appeared before Judge Warren T. Edwards on Monday in Marion County Common Pleas Court. The offense is a fourth-degree felony.
Purvis will be subject to a term of up to two years of community control following his release from prison and will be required to register as a sex offender.
"You understand that when you get out, you will still have these sex offender registration requirements that you have to comply with," Judge Edwards told Purvis during the sentencing hearing. "If you don't, and you come back here, you're going to be before me again. So wherever you decide to reside when you get out (of prison), you need to be in compliance with your registration requirements. Because this is the type of offense, the more frequently you fail to register, the higher the (level of the felony) offense goes and that means the more (prison) time you're going to get."
Additionally, Judge Edwards ordered that Purvis must pay a $1,000 fine to the Marion County Clerk of Courts. He received credit for 222 days served at the Multi-County Correctional Center in Marion while the case was in progress.
According to a judgment entry filed Nov. 16, 2022, in Marion County Common Pleas Court, Purvis committed to successfully completing “any counseling and/or treatment programs as recommended.” Purvis failed to complete the STAR Community Based Correctional Facility program offered at the STAR Community Justice Center in Scioto County. He “voluntarily removed himself” from that program, according to court records.
Additionally, Purvis failed to complete a required “outpatient or inpatient sex offender counseling program” at STAR Community Justice Center.
On Oct. 21, 2022, Purvis pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex offender, a fourth-degree felony, and was sentenced to four years of community control. His violation of the terms of that community control sentence landed him in jail and then back in court.
Following the sentencing hearing on Monday, Purvis was transported back to the Multi-County Correctional Center in Marion. The warrant to convey him to the Correctional Reception Center at Orient in Pickaway County was issued on Tuesday. Once there, he will be processed into the state prison system and then assigned to a state prison to serve his sentence.
In May 2020, Purvis, age 18 at the time, was arrested on suspicion of crimes of a sexual nature that he allegedly committed in 2017 and 2018. He was accused of engaging in sexual conduct with a minor during an incident that occurred on June 10, 2018.
Purvis was also accused of presenting obscene material to minors during a period of time ranging from Jan. 1, 2017, to June 10, 2018.
The Marion County grand jury indicted Purvis on one count of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, a fourth-degree felony, and one count of disseminating matter harmful to juveniles, a fifth-degree felony, when it was convened on May 8, 2020.
Purvis pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual conduct with a minor during a hearing on Aug. 25, 2020, and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was designated a Tier II sex offender and ordered to register with the sheriff’s office in his county of residence following his release from prison.
He served his prison term at the Belmont Correctional Institution in Belmont County. He was released from prison on Dec. 3, 2021.
Email: ecarter@gannett.com | Twitter: @AndrewACCarter
This article originally appeared on Marion Star: Marion man sentenced to prison for failing to register as sex offender
