Pittsfield Man Goes To Prison For Not Registering As Sex Offender

Yesterday, March 14, in Springfield, a Pittsfield man was sentenced in federal court to three years in prison for not doing one...simple...thing. And in this instance, not doing that one simple thing is a jailable offense.

The Department of Justice reports that Jarrett Woodruff, 35-years-old, was sentenced to three years in prison along with five years of supervised release for not registering as a sex offender. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni.

Going back to August 2018, Woodruff was convicted in Pittsfield District Court on several counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. Woodruff had already served almost nine months in jail while awaiting trial, so he was placed on conditional probation and also required to register as a Level 3 sex offender.

Thus began a long story of Woodruff traveling to Ohio and Georgia while on probation,  and not only not notifying authorities on his whereabouts but also not registering as a Level 3 sex offender.

In October 2020, Woodruff was finally located in Georgia(on the run from a new child sexual abuse charge, by the way). Woodruff made an attempt to escape but was apprehended by authorities.

Finally, on November 12 of last year, Woodruff pleaded guilty to one charge of failure to register as a sex offender. The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a program designed to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual abuse nationwide.

The Project Safe Childhood initiative was launched by the US Department of Justice in 2006. For more on the story, please visit the Department of Justice's website here.