State of Minnesota, Respondent,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-0598

State of Minnesota,
Respondent,

vs.

Lloyd Edward Pugh,
Appellant.

Filed April 16, 2018
Affirmed
Reyes, Judge

Carver County District Court
File No. 10-CR-16-851

Lori Swanson, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; and

Mark Metz, Carver County A ttorney, Kelsey L. Scanlon, Assistant Coun ty Attorney,
Chaska, Minnesota (for respondent)

Cathryn Middlebrook, Chief Appellate Public Defender, Julie Loftus Nelson, Assistant
Public Defender, St. Paul, Minnesota (for appellant)

Considered and decided by Cl eary, Chief Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Jesson, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
REYES, Judge
On appeal from his conviction of fa iling to update his predatory-offender
registration, appellant argues that the state did not provide sufficient evidence to show that
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he had, in fact, changed his primary address or that he knowingly violated the requirement
that he update his registration information pursuant to the statute. We affirm.
FACTS
At around 9:00 p.m. on August 16, 2017, two Chaska Police Department officers
were dispatched to investigate a call they had received of a suspicious vehicle parked in
the area. The informant had s een a person sitting in the vehicle for over an hour and
became concerned because it was getting dark.
The officers identified the man as appe llant Lloyd Edward Pugh, a predatory-
offender registrant. While the officers asked appellant a few questions, they observed that
appellant appeared to be living out of his car based on personal belo ngings, clothes, and
blankets in the car. Appellant admitted to the officers that he had not registered with the
Chaska Police Department as a predatory offender staying in that jurisdiction.
The officers asked appellant to go to the police station to update his
information. Appellant drove himself to the station, and, upon arrival, met with an officer
in the department’s “soft interview r oom.” The officer read appellant his Miranda rights
and recorded their conversation. During the interview, appellant was cooperative with the
police officer.
Respondent State of Minnesot a charged appellant with one count of failure to
register in violation of Minn. Stat. § 243.166, subd. 5a (2016). Appellant’s bench trial took
place on November 9, 2016. The district c ourt found appellant guilty and sentenced him
to a downward-durational depart ure of 24 months stayed for five years. This appeal
follows.
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D E C I S I O N
Appellant argues that the state failed to produce sufficient evidence that he: (1) was
required to update his primary address because his primary address had, in fact, changed
and (2) knowingly violated the predatory-offender-registration statute. We disagree.
In considering a claim of insufficient eviden ce, this court’s review is limited to an
analysis of the record to de termine whether the evidence, wh en viewed in the light most
favorable to the conviction, is sufficient to allow the factfinder to reach the verdict that
they did. State v. Webb, 440 N.W.2d 426, 430 (Minn. 1 989). The reviewing court must
assume the factfinder “believed the state’s w itnesses and disbelieved any evidence to the
contrary.” State v. Moore , 438 N.W.2d 101, 108 (Minn. 1989 ). This is especially true
when resolution of the matter depends mainly on conflicting testimony. State v. Pieschke,
295 N.W.2d 580, 584 (Minn. 1980). The reviewing court will not disturb the verdict if the
factfinder could reasonably conclude that the defendant was guilty of the charged offense.
Bernhardt v. State, 684 N.W.2d 465, 476-77 (Minn. 2004).
I. The state produced sufficient evidence that appellant was required to update
his primary address information because it had, in fact, changed.

A sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim that questions whether the appellant’s conduct
meets the statutory definition of an offense pr esents a question of st atutory interpretation
that we review de novo. See State v. Hayes, 826 N.W.2d 799, 803 (Minn. 2013).
Section 243.166, subdivision 3a, states th at a registrant who leaves his or her
primary address and does not have a new one sh all register within 24 hours with the law-
enforcement authority that has jurisdiction in th e area where the registrant is staying. A
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primary address is “the mailing address of the person’s dwelling[,]” Minn. Stat. § 243.166,
subd. 1a(g), and a dwelling is “the building where the person lives under a formal or
informal agreement to do so.” Id., subd. 1a(c).
During his August 16, 2017 in terview with the officers, a ppellant said that he was
staying in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant where he works a couple of nights each
week and at his friend’s residence in Jord an, Minnesota, which is registered as his
secondary address. He admitte d that he had not been to his parents’ house, his listed
primary residence, since June, and that he had failed to update his registration information.
Appellant apologized, said that he did not know that he need e d t o r e g i s t e r i f h e w a s
homeless, and admitted that he should have contacted his probation officer.
Appellant’s testimony established that he left his primary address. Although
appellant’s parents’ home was his mailing addr ess, it was not his dwelling because direct
testimony evidence shows that appellant was not actually living at his parents’ home, which
is required to be considered a “dwelling” un der section 243.166. The state produced
sufficient evidence to demonstr ate that appellant was required to update his primary
address because it had indeed changed, and that he had failed to do so.
II. The state produced sufficient evidence that appellant knowingly violated Minn.
Stat. § 243.166.

To support appellant’s conviction, the state was required to show, amongst other
things, that appellant knowingly violated th e predatory-offender-re gistration statute.
Appellant argues that the state failed to pr oduce sufficient evidence that he knowingly
violated the statute. Evidence of past knowledge is insufficient; rather, the state must have
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shown appellant’s knowledge and the violation occurred at the same time. State v. Mikulak,
903 N.W.2d 600, 603 (Minn. 2017).
During trial, appellant’s mother testified that appellant began sleeping at a friend’s
house in June 2016, after she told him that he needed to find another place to live because
she was selling her home, appellant’s register ed primary residence. Appellant’s manager
at the fast-food restaurant testified that appellant asked for his permission to allow appellant
to sleep in his vehicle in the parking lot of the restaurant. During appellant’s police
interview on August 17, 2016, he admitted that he had not been to his parents’ house since
June and had failed to update his predatory-offender registration information accordingly.
At trial, appellant testified that he called his probation officer in June 2016, and left her a
voicemail telling her that he was sleeping in hi s car in the parking lot of the fast-food
restaurant. He also testified that he remembered initialing specific registration
requirements when he completed a predatory-offender registration packet on May 5, 2016.
But appellant maintained at trial that he did not know he had to change his address
if he was staying in the parking lot of the fast-food restaurant. The district court found that
this testimony lacked credibility because it was inconsistent with appellant’s other
statements. Because we defer to the di strict court’s credibility determinations, State v.
Buckingham, 772 N.W.2d 64, 71 (Minn. 2009), and we view the evidence in the light most
favorable to the conviction, Webb, 440 N.W.2d at 430, the record contains sufficient
evidence to support the district court’s dete rmination that appellant knowingly violated
section 243.166.
Affirmed.