WHAS11 coverage

(WHAS11) - A convicted sex offender with a long criminal history is behind bars charged with trying to assault another young child.

But his arrest brings to light new questions about how well the state sex offender registry actually keeps track of the people who are listed on it.

The sex offender registry keeps track of more than 6,000 convicted sex offenders in Kentucky and sometimes mistakes are made.

But WHAS11 News discovered the man has been arrested on more than 80 charges since being released from prison yet he’s not been listed at a valid address for years.

While the Kentucky State Police sex offender website says 59-year-old Raymond Lewis is compliant, he appears to be anything but.

Lewis was convicted of molesting a young child in Indiana in 1999.

Since his release in 2004, he’s been arrested on 83 different charges.

Last month, Lewis was arrested for panhandling and begging.

But many charges are more serious; last year he was convicted of sodomizing a corpse he found in a cemetery.  The list includes robbery and Wednesday, a count of unlawful transaction with a minor.

Police say it was here in the Russell neighborhood where Lewis met his latest alleged victim. According to investigators, she told them he asked her if she wanted a dollar.

He then allegedly pulled down the little girl’s pants and underwear before she ran away.

While Lewis was well known in the neighborhood, nobody there knew he was a convicted sex offender.

“We got too many kids out here who don’t need to go through nothing like that.

We should have known. We should have known about it. Should the cops have known? Cops should have known. When they run his id, it should have popped up automatically,” says neighbors.

But it doesn’t in Kentucky.

Most of Lewis’ arrest reports list his address as “city at large”, making him automatically non-compliant with the state registration system.

State police are in charge of keeping up with sex offenders.   Local police don’t pick them up unless they are notified that a suspect is non-compliant.

Kentucky State is also supposed to validate addresses every 90 days.

822 East Market Street was the last address Lewis apparently gave them, which has been the address of the women’s shelter since 2006.

People in the neighborhood where he was arrested yesterday say they’re glad a little girl wasn’t hurt worse by the sex offender nobody knew to watch out for.

We finally reached state police late this afternoon. They said their records indicate that every time Lewis was due to verify his address he was back in jail s the address for the women’s shelter was the last known address that K.S.P. had for him.

They say it’s also up to you to let them know when an offender is non-compliant.