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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
FOR INFORMATION CONTACT: |
July 01, 2008 |
Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force
United States Marshals Service
Inspector Katrina R. Crouse (404) 520-1843 |
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U.S. Marshals Arrest Unregistered Sex
Offender Wanted for Child Molestation |
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Atlanta, GA – On July 1, 2008,
investigators with the U.S. Marshals Service’s Southeast Regional Fugitive
Task Force (SERFTF) and the Atlanta Police Department arrested Eric Menefee
on Climax Street in Atlanta. Acting on investigative information developed
during the search for Menefee, U.S. Marshals SERFTF investigators managed to
locate him residing in a shed he had turned into an apartment on the back of
an associate’s property. Menefee, 37, is wanted by the Atlanta Police
Department for two counts of child molestation and two counts of terroristic
threats. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office also had a warrant for Menefee
for failure to register as a sex offender. The child molestation charges
stem from an incident that is alleged to have occurred while Menefee was
babysitting the victim.
Menefee was convicted in 1991 for a child molestation charge in DeKalb
County, Georgia and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Upon his
release from prison, Menefee was required to register as a sex offender
wherever he lived, worked and went to school. He moved to Fulton County but
allegedly did not register as required. The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
subsequently secured a warrant for him in October of 2005 for the failure to
register as a sex offender charge. In February of 2008, while unregistered,
Menefee resided with a family that had children. Menefee would baby-sit the
children while the parents went to work and is said to have taken advantage
of his time alone with the children. Upon investigating this incident, the
Atlanta Police Department obtained the child molestation and terroristic
threats warrants against Menefee in April of 2008.
That is when the U.S. Marshals Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force began
their hunt for Menefee. Investigators went house to house interviewing known
family members and associates in an exhaustive search for Menefee. Today the
hard work paid off. Menefee was safely taken into custody and is waiting to
face his charges in the Fulton County Jail.
The U.S. Marshal’s Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force (SERFTF) is a team
comprised of law enforcement officers from the United States Marshals
Service, as well as, 27 other local, state and federal agencies. The task
force’s objective is to seek out and arrest the region’s most violent
offenders. Since the inception of the task force in September of 2003, the
U.S. Marshals SERFTF has closed over 12,000 felony warrants. Annually, U.S.
Marshals locate and arrest more fugitives than all other federal law
enforcement agencies combined.
Additional information about the U.S. Marshals can be found at
http://www.usmarshals.gov. |
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