NewsNational News

Actions

Convicted child rapist who cut off ankle monitor caught in Norfolk

Posted at 6:18 PM, Feb 28, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-28 18:34:36-05

(CNN) -- Fugitive Colorado sex offender Eric Hartwell, who apparently cut off his ankle monitor and left a group home, has been apprehended in Norfolk, Virginia, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

A fugitive warrant was requested minutes after Hartwell, 51, walked away from Independence House in Denver a week ago.

Hartwell was convicted of raping a child in 1991 and of attempted indecent liberties in 1996, according to the Colorado sex offender registry.

He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised parole by a federal judge in Texas in March 2010 after he was found guilty of failing to register as a sex offender, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.

Hartwell was placed in a halfway house in Washington state in March 2009 for failure to register as a sex offender, but after just a week there he cut off his leg monitor and fled to Texas, according to the Justice Department.