For Tina Dionne, it’s more important for the man who sexually assaulted her as a child to register as a sex offender than serve time in prison.
Dionne was abused by her uncle, Clarence Cote, who is now 67. He was sentenced in March 2014 to 10 years in prison with all but five years suspended, but could be released from the Maine State Prison as early as June. Once released, he must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
“I didn’t care how much prison time [Cote] got,” Dionne, 33, of East Millinocket said. “I wanted him to be on the list for life. I don’t want him to be able to do this to anyone else.”
Dionne said Cote’s registration also will let her to keep track of him.
“I grew up in a time when you didn’t deal with sexual abuse — you swept it under the rug,” she said. “I have been very open with my own children.”
And as a parent, Dionne has used the registry to see how close sex offenders live to her. She told her children to avoid a neighbor after East Millinocket police notified residents in January 2015 that a registrant who had been convicted of possessing child pornography was living in their neighborhood.
That man, she said, was Philip Fournier, 55, who was arrested last month for the murder of 16-year-old Joyce McLain in East Millinocket in 1980. He is being held without bail at the Penobscot County Jail.
Dionne’s opinion of the registry is crystal clear.
“No matter where [Cote] goes, people are going to have to know what he did,” she said. “The sex offender registry helps people be aware of what people like him have done. They can’t just take off to another state and start over. That has to follow them.”