Man gets 30 months for not registering as sex offender
10:49 AM Wed, Dec 10, 2008 | Permalink
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By Katie Mulvaney A Massachusetts man who became the first person in Rhode Island to be charged under a 2006 federal law for failing to register as a sex offender when he moved into the state was sentenced today to 30 months in prison. Michael DiTomasso, 36, failed to register after moving from Milford, Mass., to Woonsocket in March 2007, despite being told by local police that he needed to do so within a week, authorities say. The Woonsocket police arrested him on April 4, 2007, and charged him with failing to register in a case that is pending in Providence County Superior Court. The U.S. Marshal's Office in Providence investigated, resulting in an October 2007 indictment on a federal charge that he violated the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, known as the sex offender registration and notification act that requires offenders who move from one state to another to register their new address. In sentencing DiTomasso today, Chief U.S. District Judge Mary M. Lisi acknowledged he had a difficult childhood and has been plagued by mental health and drug dependency issues. "It's a dangerous cycle you're going in," Lisi said. She said she understood his reluctance to register because of fear of retribution, but was troubled that he knowingly broke the law and his history of violence.
"The law is the law," she said, adding "It was a decision on your part ... that has dire consequences for you." He was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, but was given credit for time served at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, where he has been held since his arrest last October. Lisi asked that he be transferred from Wyatt because of unidentified problems he had suffered in that facility. Lisi gave him three years of supervision after his release and ordered him to participate in substance abuse and mental health treatment. "This is it," she said. "This is your chance to turn it around." 
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