The state may be stretching the law by forcing a Madison man to register as a sex offender more than a year after a judge ruled he wouldn't have to, attorneys said.

The attorney for Robert Pentland III promised to appeal a judge's June decision in state Superior Court in Stamford that Pentland, 36, should be on the public sex offender registry.
  "I am extremely optimistic about my chances in that appeal," attorney Norman Pattis said.

Police charged Pentland with molesting a 10-year-old Darien girl while he baby-sat her in 2003, records show. He was accused of reaching under her shirt, rubbing her chest and touching her genital area, court records show.

But the victim did not want to testify, court records show, hindering the strength of the prosecutor's case. So the prosecutor, Assistant State's Attorney Kelley Swift, agreed to reduce the charges in exchange for Pentland's guilty plea.

Pentland pleaded guilty to two counts of reckless endangerment and one count of second-degree unlawful restraint. Neither crime is an obvious sex offense, but someone convicted of unlawful restraint against a child must register as a sex offender under state law.

There is one condition: the judge must tell the defendant he will have to register as a sex offender before he completes his guilty plea, according to state law.

The judge, Martin Nigro, did not do so when Pentland pleaded guilty in January 2005. Swift did not mention registration during the hearing.

Pentland's attorney at the time, Michael Sherman, told Nigro he did not want Pentland registered as a sex offender, records show.

Nigro remembered the oversight during a June hearing in Pentland's case.

"Defense counsel at the time representing (Pentland) indicated there would be no sex registration," Nigro said. "And the court confirmed it because the court was understanding he was not pleading to the original sex-offender charges."

Sherman said he made sure Pentland would not have to register when he pleaded guilty last year.

"We certainly determined it was not a sex crime," he said.

Prosecutors realized Nigro missed a chance to order Pentland to register as a sex offender, records show, so when Pentland was in court to answer charges he violated his probation, Nigro corrected his mistake.

"I have since reviewed the matter," Nigro said during that June hearing, "and find there was a misunderstanding on the part of the court, on the part of the defense counsel, on the part of the defendant perhaps . . . And there was no comment by the state's attorney."

The new prosecutor, Assistant State's Attorney Carol Dreznick, then read the law that said Pentland should have registered as a result of his unlawful restraint conviction, a transcript shows.

"It is mandatory registration," Dreznick told the judge.

Pattis said the state missed its chance to force Pentland to register when the judge failed to warn him about it during his guilty plea.

Forcing him to register after that, Pattis said, "is unfair to Mr. Pentland."

"I don't see how I lose that on appeal," Pattis said.