GUILDERLAND — The town’s only registered Level 3 sex offender was arrested and sent to jail after he disappeared for 27 days when he left a local drug-rehabilitation center, according to police.

Guilderland Police arrested Robert J. Palmer, 48, after he left the St. Peter’s Addiction Recovery Center on Mercy Care Lane and he did not notify the New York State Sex Offender Registry in accordance with state law. He is being charged with a class D felony for failing to verify his address.

The sex registry, set up by state law, requires all convicted sex offenders to notify the registry within 10 days of an address change. A Level 3 sex offender is the highest level on the registry and is assigned to people deemed most likely to re-offend.

Guilderland Police say that Palmer turned himself in to police custody and was arraigned in Guilderland Town Court and remanded to Albany County’s jail without bail last Thursday.
"They’re the worst of the worst"Their victims are kids," Guilderland Police Sergeant Gary W. Lee said of Level 3 offenders.
According to the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, Palmer was arrested by Troy Police on Nov. 6, 2003 for forcible touching of a 5-year-old boy with "actual sexual contact."

He was sentenced to one year in county jail.

Lee said that Palmer was in and out of drug rehabilitation a few times, but that he could not be accounted for between the time he left SPARC and when he contacted the registry again.
"He was missing for 27 days. What went on during that time" He most likely went back to his old ways and began using drugs again, but we can’t tell," Lee told The Enterprise.

Palmer is described in his arrest report as being 5 foot, 5 inches tall, and weighing 159 pounds, and having hazel eyes and brown hair. He also has a tattoo on his left forearm and on his finger.

According to Guilderland’s sex registry files, which are available on the town’s website and the Guilderland Police Benevolent Association’s website, there are 14 sex offenders living in town. Recently retired Guilderland Police First Sergeant William Ward previously monitored the sex offender registry in town and helped to get the lists on the Internet.

Lee now monitors the town’s registry.
Palmer is the only Level 3 offender registered in the town of Guilderland, but there are two other sex offenders living in town about whom Lee could not release information to the public, because, he said, of "court injunctions" pending on the cases.

The Level 2 sex offenders currently living in ZIP codes that serve Guilderland include:

— Donald E. White, 58, of ZIP code 12303;

— Richard C. Balls, 29, of ZIP code 12009; and

— James H. Passenger, 60, of ZIP code 12009.

The Level 1 sex offenders currently living in ZIP codes that serve Guilderland include:

— Charles Eble, 37, of ZIP code 12084;

— David Lockskin, 21, of ZIP code 12084;

— Brian Auer, 26, of ZIP code 12084;

— James M. Boxley, 47, of ZIP code 12203;

— Thomas B. Kelly, 25, of ZIP code 12009;

— Harvey Snye, 56, of ZIP code 12159;

— Frederick Milo, 44, of ZIP code 12085; and

— John Grizzard, 33, of ZIP code 12186.