Gulfport, Miss.  – A former Florida resident, who moved to Mississippi, was sentenced to 30 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for failure to register as a sex offender, announced U.S. Attorney Darren J. LaMarca and U.S. Marshal Mark B. Shepherd.

Jason Marvin Kent, 43, was sentenced after pleading guilty on February 16, 2022, to failure to register as a sex offender, which is a federal felony under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), commonly known as the Adam Walsh Act.

On July 22, 2021, Kent was arrested by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department in Moss Point on a failure to register arrest warrant issued out of Walton County, Florida. Investigation revealed that Kent relocated from Florida to Mississippi in early 2021 to avoid being arrested on the Florida warrant.  Kent and his girlfriend had been working and living at a local motel.  Kent was convicted in 2002 of lewd or lascivious conduct in Walton County and was sentenced to three years’ probation and classified as a sex offender.  Florida is a lifetime registration state and, in 2015, Kent was convicted of failure to register in Florida, for which he was sentenced to three years’ probation.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Marshals Service, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Walton County Florida Sheriff’s Department.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stan Harris was the prosecutor for the case.