Fleeing sex offender found in Seattle
No arrest without order of extradition
SEATTLE — Authorities in Seattle have located a high-risk sex offender who recently fled Canada.
The Seattle Police Department says Michael Sean Stanley was found in downtown Seattle on Thursday and was ordered to register as a sex offender.
He wasn’t arrested because Canadian authorities have declined to try to extradite him. But Seattle police say the 48-year-old could be arrested if he fails to register as a sex offender.
Stanley has a long history of sexual offences against women and children and had been missing since Oct. 1, when he left Edmonton and cut off his electronic-monitoring bracelet in Lloydminster, on the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.
Edmonton police said they warned U.S. counterparts that he might try to cross the border, but U.S. officials allowed him in after determining he was an American citizen and not the subject of an extraditable arrest warrant.
“Law enforcement officials on both sides of the U.S. border are working to resolve this very complicated situation,” Seattle police said in a message posted on the department’s blotter.
“In the meantime, Seattle police have ordered Stanley to immediately register as a sex offender in Washington, which would bring him under law enforcement supervision.”
On the weekend, Alberta Justice announced it would not seek Stanley’s extradition to Canada because the breach of recognizance, mischief and driving charges he faces north of the border don’t involve violence.
Alberta Justice acknowl- edged Stanley’s violent record, but said the charges he is currently facing “do not typically warrant engaging the extradition process.
“If Michael Stanley returns to Canada, we are prepared to prosecute him and to ensure that he continues to be subject to an order to protect the public,” the department said.
A spokeswoman with the Edmonton police said the developments in Seattle don’t change the Edmonton department’s handling of the case.
At least one Canadian extradition expert has sided with leaving Stanley in the U.S.
Gary Botting of Coquitlam, B.C., said last week that extradition would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and Stanley would face little, if any, jail time if he were convicted of the charges he is currently wanted on in Canada.
But Alberta’s Official Opposition Wildrose party has called the government’s actions “morally reprehensible” and demanded that Justice Minister Jonathan Denis try to get Stanley back.
“This is an individual who has been terrorizing vulner- able Albertans for decades, who is now on the loose, and Alberta Justice is saying they’re not going to do anything about it,” justice critic Shayne Saskiw said earlier this week. “I implore minister Denis to do everything in his power to bring this guy back to Alberta.”
Stanley’s criminal record in Canada dates back to 1987.
The 48-year-old last received a 32-month prison term for assault and forcible confinement involving two mentally challenged boys. Parole board records say he lured the boys into a washroom, blew crack smoke in their faces and then sexually assaulted them.
Parole records also detail the sexual assault of an elderly woman and outline charges that he exposed himself to kids.
The board determined that Stanley posed a risk to reoffend and kept him behind bars until his warrant expiry date, the final day of his sentence, in 2011.
U.S. law enforcement officials have said they can’t arrest Stanley unless he commits a crime.