BANGOR – A convicted sex offender who failed to register as such in Washington County has relocated to Bangor while awaiting court action in Machias.

Dennis Dean Wentworth, 49, allegedly failed to register as a sex offender after he was released from prison in January and authorities learned he was not living at a home in Perry as he stipulated in documents he filled out before his release.

Authorities began looking for Wentworth and enlisted the help of the public, including through an appeal for help in a March 17 article in the Bangor Daily News.

Someone reading the article tipped off Washington County officials that Wentworth was staying at the Acadia Recovery Community in Bangor, a facility for people with substance abuse problems, according to a Bangor police official.

Wentworth was convicted in 1996 of gross sexual assault in connection with a family member who was under age 14. He served a seven-year sentence, starting in 1998, according to the state registry’s Web site.

Bangor police officers located Wentworth at ARC on March 22. He then was taken to the Penobscot Count Jail, and, one day later, Wentworth was returned in custody to Washington County, according to information from the Penobscot County Jail.

Wentworth appeared in 4th District Court in Machias on March 24 and was released on $1,500 unsecured bail, according to information from the Washington County Jail.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in the District Court on May 17.

Since his release from court last week, Wentworth has returned to the ARC on Indiana Avenue in Bangor, which now is listed as his address by the Maine Sex Offender Registry. The address last was verified on March 22, according to information on the state registry’s Web site.