Pike County sheriff’s deputies arrested two men last week on charges of failing to register as a sex offender.
The first arrest ocurred Aug. 27 when deputies booked 38-year-old Antonio M. Simmons, 1008 Gum Grove Lane in the Pleasant Grove community.
Simmons has prior convictions of two counts of sexual battery, one count of kidnapping, and two counts of rape and carnal knowledge of a child under the age of 14, according to the state sex offender registry.
Those convictions stem from a 1996 case in Lincoln County.
The second Pike arrest ocurred Aug. 29. Deputies booked 28-year-old Donte Jermel Kates, 1038 L.A. Brister Road, west of Summit.
Kates was convicted in 2013 in Liberty County, Georgia, on a charge of aggravated assault with intent to rape, according to the state sex offender registry.
The state mandates convicted sex offenders to register every 90 days and every time they move to a new address.
“We get sex offender registry notification that these people fail to register,” Chief Investigator Lance Falvey said. “We go out and locate them and conduct an investigation. We do quite a bit of these, too.”
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety hosts the state’s sex offender registry website, designed to disseminate information to the public.
It can be viewed at state.sor.dps.ms.gov.
