The Associated Press
WEST BEND, Wis. (AP) - A recent attempted abduction has some law enforcement officials upset that they aren’t notified when sex offenders move into their communities.
Washington County Sheriff Jack Theusch said he was stunned to learn last week that Chad Maertz, who has been charged with the attempted abduction of a Fond du Lac teen, was living in the Town of Kewaskum.
“The first I knew about it was when Fond du Lac County called to request a squad to arrest him,” Theusch said. “We didn’t know he was here.”
Maertz was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child and two counts of child enticement in 1987.
Maertz moved to Washington County in 1999, authorities said, but because he was no longer on parole he did not have to register with local law enforcement. He did register with the Wisconsin Sex Offender Registry Program as required.
That program puts Maertz on an Internet site that lists all registered sex offenders by name as well as ZIP code, but there is no process to alert local law enforcement to his movements.
That’s a problem, Theusch said.
“It leaves a little gap,” he said. “Had we known about (Maertz), we might have thought about him as a suspect. I’m not saying we would have, but knowing he was around might have triggered that process.”
Ozaukee County Sheriff Maury Straub sides with Theusch.
“I think we need to look at this issue, and we need to change things,” he said. “Especially in light of all the abductions and attempts we’re seeing across the country. If these people have been identified as sex offenders, we ought to be notified.”
Bill Clausius, a spokesman with the state Department of Corrections, said the department would be willing to discuss those concerns.
But as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to notify all local law enforcement agencies of sex offenders’ movements, he said.
“That would be thousands of letters of month,” Clausius said.