Crime & Safety
BREAKING: Teen On Sex Offender Registry for 25 Years Gets Reprieve
Zach Anderson appeared before a new judge Friday after sentence sparking international outrage was set aside.
Updated at 2:20 p.m.
Facing a new judge, the Indiana teen on the sex offender registry for 25 years for having sex with an underage Michigan girl he met on a dating app got a reprieve Friday.
At a new bond hearing, Berrien County Judge Angela Pasula said Zach Anderson — whose case set off a debate about one-size-fits-all sex offender laws that make no distinction between child predators and teens who’ve had consensual sex — can be taken off sex offender registries in Michigan and Indiana, WBND-TV reports
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Zach Anderson, of Elkhart, IN, was 17 when he had consensual sex with a Niles, MI, girl, who was 14, but had told him she was 17. Anderson was arrested and charged after the girl’s mother reported her missing. Anderson is now 19.
Pasula lifted some of the jarring restrictions imposed on Anderson by the original sentencing judge, Berrien County District Judge Dennis Wiley, who not only ordered the teen to register as a sex offender, but set limits on where he could live and work, and Internet-use restrictions.
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Anderson still must refrain from social media, but the young man whose goal of a career in computer science can use his devices for school work. He can’t drink alcohol, consume drugs or frequent places where such activities occur. He must abide by a 9 p.m. curfew.
His bond was set at $2,000.
Earlier this month, Berrien County District Judge Dennis Wiley set aside his original sentence on a technicality.
Wiley vacated his ruling because, he said, the prosecutor “did not fulfill and significantly undercut the plea agreement” and the agreement was “breached.”
The breach stems from a plea agreement in which Anderson would have been eligible for sentencing under Michigan’s Holmes Youthful Trainee Act. It allows first-time offenders between the ages of 17 and 21 to avoid harsher penalties — like a 25-year listing on the sex offender registry — and get a chance to have their records expunged.
Anderson’s new sentencing date is unclear.
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