By Chhun Sun
The Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A wanted sex offender was arrested early Wednesday morning after he refused to leave a Colorado Springs hotel in a confrontation with deputies, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Phillip Patrick Garnier, 23, was arrested on suspicion of failure to register as a sex offender and failure to comply with probation, the Sheriff’s Office said.
He was taken into custody without incident at 4:20 a.m. after deputies received a tip about four hours earlier that Garnier was spotted at the Howard Johnson Express Inn on South Nevada Avenue, the Sheriff’s Office said.
Colorado Springs police and the department’s K-9 unit assisted in the arrest.
Garnier pleaded guilty in 2014 to sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, the Sheriff’s Office said. The victim was between 15 and 18 years old, court records show.
A search for Garnier was announced Tuesday afternoon.
In a news release, the Sheriff’s Office said Garnier was ranked No. 18 on the Colorado Bureau of Investigations Top 100 Wanted Sex Offenders list.
“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the citizens for their involvement in helping us take this predator off the streets of our community,” Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Jacqueline Kirby said in a news release.