On October 2, 2024, a Schenectady County Jury convicted Sean Padilla of two counts of Failure to Register as a Sex Offender, class E felonies in violation of Sections 168-t and 168-f of the Correction Law following a three-day trial.
Mr. Padilla, a registered sex offender since his 2012 conviction for Sexual Abuse in the First Degree, is required to register and verify certain information about his whereabouts to the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services, which maintains New York’s publicly available sex offender registry. Sex offenders in New York are required by law to update their address with the Division of Criminal Justice Services within 10 days of moving and are also required to annually verify their address.
On February 1, 2022, Mr. Padilla was registered as living in the City of Schenectady and informed the Division of Criminal Justice Services of his address. Then, on July 20, 2022, Mr. Padilla moved out of his residence in Schenectady. He first moved to Fultonville, New York and then moved to Amsterdam, New York. Mr. Padilla did not update his address with the Division of Criminal Justice Services until April 18, 2023, more than nine-months after he moved out of Schenectady. While Mr. Padilla was in Montgomery County, not living at his registered address in Schenectady, he also failed to submit his required annual address verification form.
Mr. Padilla faces a maximum sentence of one and one-third to four years in state prison on each count, which may run consecutively for an aggregate of two and two-thirds to eight years in state prison. Sentencing is scheduled for December 3, 2024. The case was tried by Assistant District Attorney Eric J. Weinhold. Mr. Padilla was represented by Stephen Signore and Morgan Welling of the Public Defender’s Office. Schenectady County Court Judge Matthew J. Sypniewski presided over the trial.