A man convicted in 1991 of a sex crime involving a minor is facing a year in jail after being found guilty of failing to register as a sex offender, the City Attorney's Office announced Wednesday.
Daniel Lackey, 56, is required to register as a sex offender for life in California as a result of his 1991 conviction for lewd and lascivious acts on a child 14 or 15 years old.
Authorities said Lackey brought suspicion on himself by taking photographs of neighborhood children in Serra Mesa. In November, a woman contacted 10News after she said a man took pictures of her daughter at a yard sale.
Other neighbors contacted authorities following 10News' story, and an investigation led to Lackey.
Lackey told police he was a transient, but the investigation found that he was living in a single-family residence in Serra Mesa.
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Registered sex offenders are required to report their true and correct address and to report any address at which they regularly reside.
Failing to provide accurate information to law enforcement as a registered sex offender is a crime in California.
Lackey, who was found guilty on Tuesday, is scheduled to be sentenced March 4.
The conviction exposes a homeless sex offender problem that could be living in any neighborhood in the county.
The head of the San Diego SAFE task force calls homeless offenders "our nightmare."
Of the more than 4,400 sex offenders in the county, 557 are registered as homeless.
Even if they lie about their residency, it is usually hard to prove, with about 15 to 20 prosecutions a year.
Homeless sex offenders have to register every 30 days and have to supply a ZIP code, but are easy to miss on the Megan's Law website and can move about freely between registrations.
