Jury finds Jeena Nilson guilty of failing to update her sex offender registry

Jeena Nilson, 58, arrested and charged with six counts of failing to register as a sex offender, a third-degree felony.

LOGAN — A jury has found Jeena Nilson guilty of failing to disclose her social media accounts and work at a gym, in her sex-offender registry. The 60-year-old Providence woman dropped her head and began to cry as the jury of four men and four women announced their verdict.

The two-day trial came to a close Thursday night in 1st District Court. Nilson, who never took the witness stand, was found guilty on three of the four counts of failing to register as a sex-offender, a third-degree felony.

Outside the courtroom, state attorney Jacob Gordon said the trial came down to Nilson not following the law, as part of her sentencing for pleading guilty to sexually abusing a child in 2001.

“I felt like we had good evidence and the jury saw that,” said Gordon. “They convicted her on three of the four counts, so we are happy with the jury’s verdict.”

The jury agreed with prosecutors and found Nilson didn’t disclose that she was working or volunteering at the Altius Gymnastics Academy. She also didn’t report her Facebook page and Linked In account.

Nilson was found not guilty of disclosing a Ford Ranger that was in her name. Defense attorney Camille Neider had claimed the truck actually belonged to Nilson’s son, but he hadn’t correctly transferred the title to his name.

Throughout the trial, Neider argued that Nilson had updated her registry 33 times. She told the jury that registering was a confusing process and her client didn’t knowingly leave the information out.

Outside the courtroom, Gordon said whether Nilson omitted the information maliciously or not, she broke the law that is intended to protect the community.

“That is a difficult question,” he said. “I think that she knew she should have reported and she didn’t. As far as her personal motivations for having done that, I can’t say.”

Judge Kevin Allen ordered Nilson to appear again in court January 29 to be sentenced. She could face up to five years in prison for each charge.

<hr /><p style=”text-align: center;”>[email protected]

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.