Sex registry under fire

The state's sex offender registry is being eyed for changes, some of which may come as a result of a new federal law.

But who ends up on the registry — or who doesn't — and the duration offenders should remain on the registry have many people with an interest in the list at odds over how it should change.

There are examples of people not on the list, but who some think should be because of the sexual component of their crimes.

Springville fertility specialist Larry Andrew was found guilty of sexually touching his female patients and was sentenced last month on eight misdemeanor counts of sexual battery to less than a year in jail and two years of probation.

Andrew is not on the registry.

Sean Winget could not deal normally with feelings of sexual arousal, killed a 10-year-old female neighbor when he was 15 and served 13 years in prison. He was thought to be mentally ill and was charged with manslaughter, which is not a sex crime.

Winget is not on the registry.

But there are people who want Winget, now out of prison, to be listed on Utah's sex offender registry.

Dar Belnap, 76, the grandfather of the girl Winget killed, believes that Winget cannot be reformed, that he's mentally ill and that he should have been put away for life. At the very least, he wants Winget on a sex offender registry for life.

"He's got to be watched 24 hours a day, for his own good and for the good of others," Belnap said.

Winget and his father turned down requests for an interview for this story.

Belnap still refers to Winget, now in his 20s, as a kid, someone without remorse for what he did. Belnap says about himself that he is still bitter and sheds tears over the slaying when he drives past the area in Roy where Winget left the body of his granddaughter.

Off the grid

There are others like Winget or Andrew, whose criminal cases were found to have sexual components to them, but they are or will also be off the grid, not monitored via the state's sex offender registry.

And still more criminals in Utah have had attorneys, as in Andrew's case, who successfully plea-bargained their crimes down to a conviction of sexual battery, a misdemeanor, which is not an offense that requires them to register.

Plea bargains, however, don't always mean there will be no registry listing for people found guilty of sex crimes.

Angela Ray Andrews, 37, recently was convicted of murdering her 10-year-old stepdaughter. Her additional charge of first-degree felony aggravated sexual abuse of a child was reduced to a second-degree felony. The charge could have been dismissed in exchange for her guilty plea, but because it wasn't, she will be on the sex offender registry.