Rodney Gaskell, 58, of Garland is on the Maine sex offender registry from a 1976 rape conviction in Fall River, Massachusetts. He calls it “a public shunning.”
Gaskell, who has never been convicted of a sex crime in Maine, is fighting to have his name removed and believes he is on the registry illegally.
Until then, he said, “when people find out that you are on the registry, they begin to discriminate against you.”
Gaskell said he has never been threatened with violence but said he has been shouted at in public by a person who said, “I’m the one that’s going to get you.” He did not report the incident to police, however.
He has trouble finding work because of the registry, which has led to financial problems.
“I’m barely surviving,” he said. “I got help from Penquis CAP to pay for fuel. I’m on food stamps, and I could lose the house for back taxes because I have no substantial income.”
The solution, he maintains, is to keep pedophiles who pose a danger to children in prison. People like him, he said, instead are seen as “some sort of threat to society.”
“It’s dehumanizing,” Gaskell said of life on the registry. “Being on the registry is isolating and that’s not good.”