Eric Skinner
(DOC file photo)
By Patti Weaver
(Stillwater, Okla.) — A convicted child molester, who previously lived in Cushing and Drumright, has been jailed on $5,000 bail on a charge of violating the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration Act in Payne County.
Eric Joe Neil Lee Skinner, Jr., 27, has been scheduled for arraignment this week on the felony charge punishable on conviction by as much as a five-year prison term and a $5,000 fine, according to court documents filed last week.
Payne County Sheriff’s Investigator Rockford Brown alleged in an affidavit that on Oct. 10 he was notified by the Department of Corrections that Skinner was out of compliance with the sex offender registration law.
Skinner had registered with the Payne County Sheriff’s Office on Sept. 2 as a lifetime offender with his address listed as an apartment at 2008 N. Kings Highway in Cushing, the affidavit alleged.
An apartment resident told the investigator that Skinner lived with him at 2008 N. Kings Highway in Cushing “until around Sept.13 and following that date Skinner never returned having moved his property from this location,” the affidavit alleged.
A Drumright woman said that Skinner began renting a room in the 300 block of S. Pennsylvania, but when she and her husband discovered that Skinner was a registered sex offender, they made him leave the residence around the end of September, the investigator alleged in his affidavit.
“Skinner never notified the Payne County Sheriff’s Office about moving from the residence on Kings Highway; furthermore, he never notified Drumright police that he would be residing inside their city limits,” the affidavit alleged.
“Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, I made contact with Skinner at the Payne County Sheriff’s Office and placed him under arrest,” the investigator wrote in his affidavit.
According to Tulsa County court records, Skinner was 17 when he was charged as a youthful offender with two counts of child molestation in 2013.
After he turned 18, Skinner pleaded guilty to the charges as an adult and was sentenced to eight years in prison followed by five years of probation, court records show.
Skinner was released from prison in May of 2020 after being incarcerated for about six and one-half years, Department of Corrections records show.
