S. Carolina sex offender pleads guilty to charges

MOUNT DESERT – A South Carolina man who came to Maine for a seasonal job is going to end up spending most of the summer behind bars, according to police.

Johnny E. Gilbert, 47, of Spartanburg, S.C., pleaded guilty Friday in Ellsworth District Court to assault, failure to give police his correct name, and failure to register in Maine as a convicted sex offender, according to court documents.

Local police went to a restaurant in the village of Seal Harbor on June 11 after the owner called to complain that two of her employees, who lived in an apartment below the business, had gotten into a fight, police wrote in a court affidavit. Gilbert subsequently told police he had recently come to Maine from South Carolina and had been working at the restaurant only for a few weeks.

Gilbert initially gave police a false name but confessed to his true identity after they found his name and photo on a list of convicted sex offenders posted on the official South Carolina Web site. State law requires all convicted sex offenders to register with the state within 24 hours of arriving in Maine.

According to the South Carolina online sex offender registry, Gilbert was convicted in 1994 of indecent liberties with a child and of committing a lewd act upon a child under the age of 16. In 2001, he was convicted in North Carolina for failure to register as a convicted sex offender.

On Friday, Gilbert received a 60-day sentence for failing to register in Maine as a convicted sex offender, according to court documents. He received 30-day sentences for each of the other charges.