Loophole for fugitive sex offender found in Santa Cruz
The Santa Cruz Police Department is investigating a fugitive sex offender from Oregon, recently arrested locally on auto burglary charges.
Around 2:15 a.m. Monday, officers arrested a suspect who was allegedly breaking into City Water Department trucks parked in the City Hall complex. According to Santa Cruz police, Joe Ray Greene broke into the trucks and the tools boxes on the trucks.
Santa Cruz police said they have arrested Greene twice in 2014 for public intoxication.
But Greene’s criminal past goes beyond his alleged criminal activity in Santa Cruz. After the last arrest, Santa Cruz Police learned Greene is a convicted sex offender from the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs in Oregon. In 2004, Greene was convicted in Tribal Court of child abuse and child rape after attacking two young boys, according to police.
Still today, Greene is supposed to be registered as a sex offender on the Warm Springs Tribal lands. Santa Cruz police said he failed to register, and the Tribal courts issued a warrant for him. However, according to local authorities, Warms Springs is a sovereign tribal territory and they are exempt from federal law, which ordinarily would allow the U.S. to have jurisdiction over Native American reservations.
In other words, state and local officers cannot serve the Tribal warrant for him. The warrant is not recognized outside the Tribal lands.
In fact, Greene was arrested in November 2013 by police in Portland, Oregon, for his failure to register. The courts deemed they had to release him because of the lack of jurisdiction, said Santa Cruz Police.
Santa Cruz police explain that Tribal sex offender records don’t make it into the state database, so it is possible for them to go undetected once outside the lands of a sovereign Tribe.
The Santa Cruz Police Department is currently working in collaboration with the District Attorney’s Office to petition the Department of Justice, Sex Offender Assessment Unit. They are asking the Department of Justice to review Greene’s case and see if there is any way SCPD can gain jurisdiction over him and his failure to register as a sex offender here in California.
Greene remains in custody at the Santa Cruz County Jail on charges of auto burglary and resisting arrest.
