Sex offender wanted on warrant

An Island County judge put a warrant out on a registered sex offender who didn’t show up for a court hearing July 29.

Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock issued a $5,000 bench warrant on 26-year-old Travis McCreless, who was supposed to be living in South Whidbey.

Prosecutors charged McCreless with failure to register as a sex offender. He is a convicted child molester.

Under the state’s sex offender registration laws, a person who is convicted of a sex crime after Feb. 28, 1990, or kidnapping after July 27, 1997, must register with the sheriff’s office in the county he or she resides.

If the sex offender plans to move, he or she must send written notification to the new county within 14 days before moving; register 24 hours after moving; and send written notice within 10 days to the county sheriff where he or she was last registered.

A detective claims that McCreless moved from his South Whidbey residence, where he was registered to live, to Seattle without notifying the Island County Sheriff’s Office.

McCreless pleaded guilty in Island County Superior Court April 12, 1993, to first-degree child molestation.

In 2002, McCreless registered with the Island County Sheriff’s Office, claiming to live at Pioneer Park Place in Langley. In 2003, King County investigators arrested him on a drug offense, according to court documents. He eventually was sent to prison.

In July of 2004, Detective Sue Quandt with the Island County Sheriff’s Office read through the paperwork on McCreless from the Department of Corrections. She discovered that McCreless told Seattle detectives investigating him for the drug case that he had been living in Seattle for three months in 2003, she wrote, which would be a violation of the sex offender registration laws.

McCreless got out of prison on the drug charge last fall.

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