Child sex offender arrested in Alabama

At approximately 1:15 p.m. Feb. 4, The United States Marshal’s Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Omer Stokes on a Walton County warrant at a residence in Lockhart, Ala.  The 37-year-old suspect had reportedly assaulted the female victim over a two-year-period beginning in June 2006. The victim was only ten-years-old when the sexual assaults started. They took place in both Northwest Florida and Southeast Alabama.

The victim was living with the suspect over the period in which the sexual assaults took place. In one incident, Stokes punched the girl in the mouth for what he described as “being sassy”.

The Lockhart, Alabama Police Department assisted the U.S. Marshal’s Task Force in locating Stokes at his father’s house. Numerous law enforcement agencies assisted in the fugitive’s capture: The Walton County Sheriff’s Office; The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office; The Houston County, Alabama Sheriff’s Office; and the Covington County Sheriff’s Office.

Stokes is “behind bars” at the Covington County Jail in Andalusia, Ala., and is charged with sexual lewd or lascivious conduct of a person under 16-years-old, and cruelty toward a child without great harm. Friday morning, Feb. 5, he will make his first court appearance in a Covington County Courtroom. The Walton County Sheriff’s Office will ask the court that he be transferred back to Florida to face charges here.