MANKATO — A predatory offender won’t be moving to Mankato, at least not for now.
Gregory Eugene Ward was scheduled to move to the Tourtellotte Park neighborhood today.
A spokeswoman with the State Department of Corrections said Ward’s housing plan did not work out, but did not detail why.
At an earlier public meeting, a resident raised the issue of whether sex offenders were allowed to be housed in the same location where rooms were rented to victims of domestic abuse. Authorities said they would check on that provision and try to determine if that was an issue in this case. A department of corrections spokesperson declined to comment on that issue when asked Monday.
Ward remains in prison until he chooses a new location to live at, which may or may not be in the Mankato area. When he chooses where to live, local law enforcement will be notified and they generally hold a public meeting to inform residents.
Ward, 46, has a history of sex offenses dating back to the 1990s. They include fondling children he knew in Scott County and attacking a woman he didn’t know on the Sakatah Trail in Blue Earth County and attempting to force her to have sex. He was wanted by police for 14 years before he was arrested in Mankato in 2010 and sent to prison to serve a sentence stemming from the Scott County offense.
When he is released, he will be on intense supervised release, including GPS monitoring.
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