Court: Pilati must register as sex offender

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that former Franklin County district attorney John Pilati will have to register as a sex offender when he is released from prison in March.

In 2008, Pilati was sentenced to serve 42 months in prison for fondling five men ranging in age from 17 to 20 years old during searches while he was district attorney.

Pilati is scheduled to be released from a federal prison in Texas on March 24.

Pilati had appealed his conviction, sentence, and requirement that he register as a sex offender, according to the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, that was released Monday.

According to reports, the court ruled that Pilati waived or abandoned all issues related to his conviction because he did not raise them on appeal at the district court level.

Efforts to reach Pilati’s attorneys were unsuccessful.

The court documents indicate that Pilati argued the judge inaccurately required him to register as a sex offender because he was not convicted of a qualifying offense and because he was not charged in the indictment against him or found guilty of a sex offense against a minor.

The appeals court ruled that Pilati had not raised that question in an appeal to the lower district court first and that a lower court judge correctly determined Pilati had engaged in conduct, which by its nature, was a sex offense against a minor.

Pilati also served six months in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to lying to FBI agents who were investigating him on allegations that he extorted criminal defendants for favorable treatment.