Authorities in Florida are letting sex offenders know that they take proper registration extremely seriously. The Highlands County Sheriff’s Office said they warned sex offender Jorge Francisco Paz but he apparently did not take it seriously.
Back on March 18, the Sheriff’s Office posted Paz’s smiling mugshot on their Facebook page. He was nabbed for failing to register as a sex offender after he was found guilty of lewd and lascivious assault of a minor.
Paz told law enforcement officers that had lived in Miami-Dade County for years without having problems with “not being registered as a sex offender” in a timely manner.
“We told him that’s not how we do things here in Highlands County. Here, if you don’t follow the rules, you go to jail. He apparently thought we were bluffing. We were not,” the sheriff’s office said.
Paz was apprehended for violating sex offender registration rules. On March 29, the Sheriff’s Office has announced via Facebook that they have arrested Paz again, and this time, he is facing 21 additional felonies.
“We introduced everyone to sex offender Jorge Francisco Paz a little while ago. You may remember his smiling mugshot when he was arrested for four registration violations just days after moving to our county,” the sheriff’s office said in a March 29 post.
Deputies discovered additional violations and decided to pay Paz another visit after his initial arrest. Paz appears to be smiling after deputies arrested him and put him in the back of their patrol vehicle.
However, Paz appears not to be smiling in his latest mugshot.
On Facebook, the sheriff’s office said, “The Highlands County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit closely monitors the sexual offenders and predators in our county, and we are dead serious when we say that any sex offender or predator who does not comply with their registration requirements will go to jail. If you don’t want to follow the rules, you probably want to find another place to live.”
