Man sentenced for shirking sex offender registration requirements

A 54-year-old Morgan City man was sentenced last week to 18 months in prison for moving to Texas without updating his sex offender registration, U.S. Attorney Alexander Van Hook said in a news release.

Forrest Tucker, 54, of Morgan City, was sentenced Jan. 12 by U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell on one count of failure to register as a sex offender. He was also sentenced to 10 years of supervised release.

According to the Sept. 22, 2017 guilty plea, Tucker was convicted of a felony on April 17, 2008, that required him to register as a sex offender. After he served seven years in prison, St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s officers checked his address after his release in 2014, and Tucker was found absent from his Morgan City rhome. A warrant was issued for his arrest, and U.S. Marshals arrested Tucker on May 4, 2017 in a hotel in San Antonio, Texas.

The U.S. Marshals Service and the St. Mary Sheriff’s Office conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph T. Mickel prosecuted the case.