Howard Sawyer

A 38-year-old northeast Iowa man faces federal charges for escaping from custody and for failing to register as a sex offender. In 1998, Howard Sawyer of Waterloo was found guilty of third degree sexual abuse.

Sawyer has five felony convictions on his record, dating back to 1994. Federal officials have now charged him with failure to register as a sex offender, as convicted sex offenders are required by law to tell local law enforcement officials where they are living — and that information is posted on the state’s sex offender registry.

Sawyer escaped from the Waterloo Residential Correctional Facility in September of 2009 and he now faces time in a federal prison on an escape charge. If found guilty on the two charges, Sawyer could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

He’s currently being held in a federal facility and is scheduled to be in court October 9th for a detention hearing.