Fugitive hunters find sex offender
Wisconsin man arrested in Zion
By M. Daniel Gibbard
Tribune staff reporter
Published September 23, 2004
A new state-led task force hunting fugitive sex offenders has made its first arrest in Lake County, a man wanted in Wisconsin for violating probation.
Quincy Lamar Gulley, 22, who allegedly moved out of a relative's home in the 400 block of Joren Trail in Antioch and failed to notify authorities was arrested Tuesday morning in Zion, police said.
Gulley was charged with failure to register as a sex offender in Illinois. He also was charged with two other felony counts after he was found with a stolen motorcycle and a large amount of crack cocaine he intended to sell, said Zion Police Lt. Dwight Ower.
Gulley was convicted last September in Wisconsin for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. He was placed on probation and barred from having any contact with minors, according to Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan's office.
He moved to Antioch this year and registered as a sex offender, but officials say he didn't re-register when he moved to Zion.
In July, a police officer spotted him after hours in a car in a Lake County forest preserve with a 14-year-old girl, said Cara Smith, Madigan's policy director.
The officer ordered them to leave but later ran a check on Gulley and found he was on probation in Wisconsin, Smith said. Police notified Wisconsin authorities that Gulley had contact with a girl and they issued a warrant for his arrest, Smith said.
Gulley disappeared after the warrant was issued, and acting on a tip that he was living in Zion, Illinois State Police and Zion detectives had been looking for him since last month, when Wisconsin officials asked for help, Ower said.
On Monday afternoon, someone called in a tip to the Illinois Sex Offender Registry hot line that Gulley was at a home in the 2900 block of Gabriel Avenue in Zion. U.S. marshals and Zion police made the arrest.
Bail was set at $60,000 on the drug and stolen-vehicle charges, but Gulley will remain in Lake County Jail because of the Wisconsin warrant, Ower said.
He is due in court Oct. 12, Smith said.
The cocaine charge is a felony punishable by 6 to 30 years in prison, Ower said, so Gulley is likely to face trial in Illinois and, if convicted, could serve his sentence here before facing Wisconsin charges on the probation violation.
Illinois officials hailed Gulley's arrest.
"His case was really one of the handful around the state that was the impetus for forming the fugitive task force," Smith said.
The month-old Fugitive Squad is a branch of the Illinois Sex Offender Registry Team, which Madigan created in December to fix what she said were flaws in the state registry.
The task force goes after offenders who fail to register or notify authorities when they move and those who commit new crimes, Smith said.
The squad is led by investigators from Madigan's office, the state Department of Corrections and the U.S. Marshals Service, who work with state and local law-enforcement agencies to track suspects and make arrests.
"We have found that that's the way to address sex-offender issues in Illinois, with multiagency cooperation and coordination," Smith said.
In just a month, the group has helped capture Illinois fugitives in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio--even Russia, she said.
"I wouldn't want to be a non-compliant sex offender in Illinois these days," Smith said. "These guys [on the Fugitive Squad] are aggressive, and they're very serious about making this registry work and protecting women and children."
