Douglas Gustafson, Failing to Update Sex Offender Registration, New York 2024

A 36-year-old man from Onondaga County, New York, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison for failing to update his sex offender registration and absconding from supervision on his underlying sex offense.

According to the United States Attorney’s office, Douglas Gustafson was required to register as a sex offender due to a federal conviction in 2008 for recruiting and enticing a 14-year-old minor to engage in a commercial sex act. He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for that offense and was placed on 10 years supervised release after his release from prison in 2016.

Gustafson was required to register with the New York State Sex Offender Registry and to update any changes, including any change in residence. However, he admitted in his earlier guilty plea that in May 2022, he absconded from the halfway house where he was living as a part of his court-ordered supervised release and did not update his change of residence with the Sex Offender Registry as required by law.

Gustafson was located by the United States Marshal NY/NJ Regional Task Force a month later in Cazenovia, NY, and arrested.

For the crime of failing to update his sex offender registration, District Judge David N. Hurd sentenced Gustafson to 33 months in prison. For violating the terms and conditions of his supervised release, he was sentenced to an additional 24 months in prison, for a total of 57 months.

When released, Gustafson will serve another 10 years on supervised release. Under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, Gustafson is obligated to register as a sex offender for 25 years, exclusive of time spent incarcerated.

The case was investigated by the United States Marshals Service and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Lisa M. Fletcher as part of Project Safe Childhood, a program launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child exploitation and abuse.

The case number for this matter is unknown at time of writing.

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