Its back in the news again for all those who read the first two stories
I hate it when people use religion to skirt the law.
Offender told to wear device or go to jail
TOM ALEX
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
March 16, 2006
A southern Iowa man who refused to wear a sex-offender tracking device because electricity in most forms is banned by his religion has been ordered by a judge to wear the monitor or face jail.
Scott Smith, 36, argued that leaders of his former religious community, the Brotherhood of Christ, teach that believers should avoid contact with, among other things, generated electricity.
Police have said several members of the religious order live on about 520 acres east of Lamoni. Smith was a leader of the group when he was charged in 2003 with sexual abuse and indecent contact with two teenage girls.
Smith faced 10 years in prison but was put on probation for five years.
The fact that he was thrown out of the church after the convictions weighed against him in the fight over the tracking device, Judge Sherman Phipps ruled.
"If you are a sex offender of children, and you are required to wear a monitor, then you must wear one," said Gary Sherzan, chief of probation with the Fifth Judicial District. "The court agreed with us."
Smith admitted he is no longer a member of the religious community, but maintained that he held to its beliefs.
Jeff Livingston, another leader of the community, had testified that Smith, whose wife and children remain members of the mostly self-sufficient group, has been told he might be allowed back into the community if he holds to the group's requirements.
Phipps wrote: "It is significant to the court that Livingston testified that Smith . . . is not only excommunicated from fellowship with the community but not even allowed on community property."
Smith has until March 26 to start wearing the monitor or face a probation violation hearing that could send him to prison.
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