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A North Carolina man who hopped from county to county in Oregon over the past year and a half was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for failing to register as a sex offender in Oregon.
51-year old Russell Szkolnyj has been living in Oregon since mid-2018, and according to the Oregon's District Attorney's Office, lived in five different counties as an unregistered sex offender until he was convicted of failing to register in Dec. 19.
Szkolnyj was convicted for failing to register as a sex offender two different times in North Carolina, in 2009 and then again in 2012. His required registration came from a 2006 conviction that Szkolnyj had engaged in "indecent liberties" (which also includes non-contact inappropriate conduct) with a six-year-old child, and was ordered by the courts to register as a sex offender.
The District Attorney's Office said in a statement that county police officers in Oregon warned Szkolynz in July 2018 to self-register as a sex offender.
Later that year, U.S Forest Service officers found Szkolynz living in the Deschutes National Forest and ordered him to leave the forest immediately. During that time the officers found out he had still failed to register as a sex offender in Oregon.
In February of 2019, Szkolynz was arrested by police officers in Hillsboro and the case was prosecuted. He plead guilty to one count of failing to register as a sex offender in September and was convicted on Dec. 19.
Oregon law requires sex offenders to renew their registry in person with local law enforcement if they change address, start school or find a new employer. Reporting by The Oregonian in 2013 revealed how sex offenders often cross state lines to avoid having to register, since states have inconsistent laws regarding registry.
Reporting in subsequent years on Oregon's sex offender registry shows Oregon lags in how timely they log offenders and how few of the state's offenders are put on a publicly available list.