Neighbor puts up billboard to shame sex offender into moving

ROBINWOOD, Ala. — Jeb Lessley had a billboard made to pressure a registered sex offender to move.  It shows Raymond Martin’s mugshot and lists his address and charges including second-degree rape and sodomy for a 2013 conviction involving an underage girl.

Martin and his family want to see the billboard taken down.  He lives across the street from it.

“There’s people that already know my circumstances,”

.  “They can find it on the website, but it ain’t got to be broadcast.  There’s more than one sex offender that lives here.”

Martin estimates that there are more than a dozen registered sex offenders living in the neighborhood.  It’s a statistic that the man who actually bought the sign backs up.

“The reason I posted the billboard is because he has been a thorn in my side since he moved into this house,” explained Lessley.  Lessley said that Martin first started worrying him when he tried to talk to Lessley’s children. He has six kids, ranging from a newborn to 14 years old.

“He just has a lot of problems,” Lessley said.  “To be honest with you, we don’t want to live in fear of him.”

Lessley said that his relationship with Martin has just gotten worse.

“He’s threatened to burn our house down.  He’s threatened to poison our dogs.  He told my 9 year-old daughter he was going to kill and skin her cat.”

Martin vehemently denies all of Lessley’s claims.   In fact, he put up two signs of his own that list accusations again Lessley.

“It looks like he wrote on it with crayon on the back of a cardboard box,” Lessley said of the signs.  “It states my name and accuses me of crimes I haven’t been convicted of–so that in itself is harassment.  I’m going to report that.”

Martin said that the billboard has caused him and his family a lot of pain and stress.  He called police out to the neighborhood on Thursday to try and have it removed.  “[I was told] that it wasn’t against the law,” Martin said.  “That he could do that because it was public information.”

Lessley has also been in contact with police, who have told him that Martin is living in compliance with sex offender laws.  He said that he’ll take the sign down if and when Martin moves.

Cox Media Group