Sex Offender Arrested For Failure To Register

By Andrew Gorosko

SOUTHBURY –– Southbury police have charged Kenneth J. Northrop, 33, with violation of the sex offender registration law for having failed to register with the state Department of Public Safety’s Sex Offender Registry.

Northrop committed sex crimes against small children in the Riverside section of Sandy Hook in the late 1990s.

After learning that police held a warrant for his arrest, Northrop turned himself over to them on the evening of  October 24. Police said the registration violation occurred between August 20 and September 4.

Police released Northrop on a $15,000 bond for a November 12 appearance in Waterbury Superior Court to answer the charge.

Northrop is currently listed as a Waterbury resident on the sex offender registry.

The registry, which is posted on a website on the Internet, includes sex offenders’ names, ages, address, and identifying characteristics. It includes photos of offenders, as well the crimes for which they were convicted.

Northrop had moved to Southbury to live with a relative on August 20, after he had entered a plea agreement with the state on a violation of probation charge, which was then pending against him.

While in Southbury, Northrop had been living near the Housatonic River, just across the Rochambeau Bridge from Riverside, the Sandy Hook neighborhood where Northrop had committed a series of sex crimes against small children in the late 1990s. Northrop served four years in state prison on convictions for those crimes.

After Northrop’s release from prison last May, he still faced 20 years of strict probation as a sex offender.

After leaving prison, Northrop had moved to Maltbie Road in Newtown over the protests of residents there who considered his presence a threat to small children in the neighborhood. Last June, police charged Northrop with violation of probation for breaking a curfew, which prohibited him from leaving his Maltbie Road residence overnight. The overnight curfew had been placed on Northrop by his probation officer because that is the time of day when he had committed sex crimes against children in Riverside.

After spending two months in jail on $250,000 bail on the violation of probation charge, on August 20, Northrop reached a plea bargain agreement with the state, which freed him from jail, provided that he not live in Newtown, or even visit Newtown, for 20 years, among many other restrictions as terms of his probation.

During the summers of 1997 and 1998, in bizarre burglaries, Northrop entered private properties in Riverside late at night intending to secretly massage small children with vegetable oil. Those nighttime incidents frightened Riverside residents and led Newtown police to conduct surveillance and perform door-to-door interviews in a lengthy investigation, which included help from state police and the FBI. Riverside is a densely built community situated along Lake Zoar, near the Rochambeau Bridge on Interstate 84.