Weathersfield — A day after residents learned a high-risk, untreated sex offender about to be released from prison was moving to town, the police chief said yesterday he doesn't believe the man is living there.

Thomas Pellerin, 56, who was convicted of sexually assaulting in 1989 a teenage girl who worked at his Bellows Falls, Vt., video store, had notified the state offender registry that he would be living in Weathersfield when he left Southeast State Correctional Facility yesterday after serving a nearly 15-year prison term.

But Chief Richard Brown said late yesterday afternoon that he did not believe Pellerin had found a place to stay in town. "We don't know where he is," he said.

Pellerin has 72 hours to notify the Vermont registry if he is living in a town other than Weathersfield. If he does not, law enforcement could issue a warrant for his arrest and charge him with a misdemeanor.

Under Vermont law, Pellerin had to serve his entire prison sentence because he did not participate in a sex offender treatment program. He is no longer under the supervision of the state other than being required to keep the state sex offender registry program apprised of his address.

About a week ago, Pellerin sent Brown a personal letter saying that he planned to move to the area, that he had changed and that he was "a hundred percent sure he's not going to re-offend again," Brown recalled. "I think he was reaching out."

On Wednesday, police sent out a news release with Pellerin's description, and school officials alerted students and parents. At Weathersfield Middle School yesterday afternoon, administrators had set up a table with information on Pellerin's release, including a print-out of his photo from the Internet registry.

Pellerin was not staying with family in town, said Brown, nor was he staying in Weathersfield's one motel, the Yankee Village Motel on Route 5, which is about 150 yards away from Weathersfield Middle School.

"He's not here and he's not going to live here," said motel owner Mike Patel. "I've got a school behind me."

Meanwhile, Pellerin's brother said in a brief interview that the publicity surrounding his brother's release would make it difficult for him to re-join the community.

"What he did was very bad," said the brother, who lives in Weathersfield and asked that his name not be used to protect the privacy of his own family. "But he did his time and everybody wants more from him."

He said Pellerin's children are estranged from him, he has little money and few friends and was trying to move into a town where people are hostile toward him. "How would you feel?" he said.

Pellerin was designated a "high-risk" sex offender by the Department of Corrections for his scores on one of two risk assessment tests that take into account a number of factors, including his previous sex offense convictions.

The 1989 crime resulted in a conviction in 1994 following a successful appeal. He also has three other sex offense convictions in Vermont: attempted statutory rape in 1973, attempted rape in 1977 and lewd and lascivious conduct with a minor in 1990. He also was convicted of assault with intent to rape in New Hampshire in 1973.

A high-risk designation is no guarantee of re-offense; in one national study of high-risk offenders, about 48 percent were rearrested for a new sex crime within a decade of their release.

Like most other offenders, Pellerin knew his victim in 1989. Corrections and public safety officials have said that knowing the offender's pattern is key for people trying to protect themselves: Criminals who abuse people they know generally take their time and develop a trusting relationship, which they later exploit.

Some parents in town yesterday said that Pellerin's case had caused them to warn their children about walking alone after school, about not talking to strangers.

"It's very scary, having kids outside playing," said Jennifer Tucker of Perkinsville, who has three children at Weathersfield Middle School. "I have a feeling if people have their way, we'll drive him out of this town. I don't know how."

Erica Shambo, the youth program coordinator for the domestic violence agency New Beginnings in Springfield, Vt., was on hand at the school yesterday to talk with parents coming in for regularly scheduled conferences with teachers. She said she was glad Pellerin's case was getting people talking, but said they should "always be concerned" about the potential for abuse, particularly from adults the children know. She said she stresses that parents should educate their children about their personal boundaries that no one else should cross.

Offenders "want the kid who can keep a secret, who doesn't really know what's going on," she said. "Anybody has the potential of taking advantage of you."

School children got classroom visits on Wednesday from Mario Bevacqua, the superintendent and principal, who talked with them about Pellerin's release as well as other safety issues, like sharing personal information on Web sites.

Bevacqua said yesterday that he was trying to strike a balance between providing information that can help children protect themselves and refraining from causing undue panic. Students paid attention and asked a few questions; many of them had already spoken with their parents.

"I felt we had to say something," he said.

He said he also talked with some of the older students about the problems Pellerin faces as a result of the publicity. "I don't have any sympathy for him," he said, "but I can't imagine how difficult it must be coming into the community with all this information out there."

Brown, the police chief, said he had struggled with knowing that some people would think police were creating too much of a stir around Pellerin while others wanted as much information as possible.

In the end, he said, he decided the high-risk designation was too important to ignore. "You just give the public all the information you can," he said.

Max Schlueter, director of the Vermont Crime Information Center, said law enforcement performed some level of community notification for most of the 30 or so sex offenders designated as "high risk" in Vermont. That can range from press releases to public meetings to fliers.

State law places restrictions on what type of community notification is allowed on those offenders who are not deemed to pose a high risk of re-offending. In those cases, police can notify those people whom the offenders are likely to encounter on a daily basis, such as work.

Schlueter said harassment of sex offenders could be so stressful that it increases their potential of re-offending. "It becomes very difficult in terms of the public notification process," he said. "It's to nobody's advantage to have a sex offender fail."

Pellerin faced opposition in high places. Because of his criminal history and the fact he did not participate in treatment, Pellerin also was on a list of 10 offenders that Gov. Jim Douglas was using to make his case for a civil commitment proposal that would have allowed the state to keep people in custody after they completed their prison term. Public Safety Commissioner Kerry Sleeper told the Valley News last week he had some "real, legitimate public safety concerns" about Pellerin's release.