BANGOR, Maine — A man described as a transient from Florida waived indictment and pleaded guilty to a charge of failure to register as a sex offender during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Bangor on Thursday.
James R. Eggleston, 34, also faces charges in Hancock County, where he was indicted in December for allegedly breaking into a convenience store in Ellsworth last August and stealing an undisclosed number of items.
A sentencing date on the federal failure to register charge has not been set for Eggleston, who is being held without bail.
Eggleston was required to register as a sex offender as the result of a 2003 conviction in Florida for lewd and lascivious battery, court documents indicate.
Federal prosecutors said that Eggleston was aware of his obligation to register because he had done so several times. He had last registered in Florida in October 2013 and was deemed to have “absconded” in January 2014.
Ellsworth police became aware of Eggleston’s presence in Maine as a result of the burglary arrest.
Federal prosecutors said that Eggleston had been living in Maine for more than four months before his arrest and that he’d been living in a wooded area behind the Ellsworth Home Depot, where he apparently had set up camp.