Lenoir man to spend time in prison for failure to register a new address as a sex offender

LENOIR, NC (September 27, 2019) — Aron Eugene Shell, 46, of Lenoir, will spend six to nine years in prison after he was convicted of failure to register a new address as a sex offender, breaking and entering a motor vehicle and admitting his habitual felon status.

The Honorable James W. Morgan, Superior Court Judge from Cleveland County, imposed the prison term for Shell following his guilty plea during Caldwell County Superior Court on Thursday, September 26, 2019.

Shell will serve his prison sentence in the custody of the North Carolina Division of Adult Corrections.

His sentence length was enhanced by prior felony convictions for second-degree rape and indecent liberties with a child (January 1993), failure to register as a sex offender (August 2007), both in Caldwell County, and unlawful possession of a firearm (March 2014) in U.S. Federal Court.

Shell previously was convicted of second-degree rape and indecent liberties with a child and was required to register as a sex offender. In January 2017, officers were conducting a check of his listed home and determined after several attempts that the home was unoccupied.

In February 2018, the defendant was caught in a motor vehicle belonging to someone else by employees of a local business. He also was seen on video surveillance in the vehicle.

Capt. Aaron Barlowe investigated the failure to register case for the Caldwell County Sheriff’s Office, and Deputy Mark Noble handled the breaking and entering matter. Nancy Lee prosecuted both cases for the District Attorney’s Office.