A federal lawsuit brought by a sex offender in Cumberland County says it's unconstitutional for correction officers to use satellites to track him.

The lawsuit, filed this month by Jay Usategui of Hope Mills, is an early test of a new state law that calls for more aggressive monitoring of certain sex offenders. About 114 sex offenders are monitored under the new program, state correction officials said.

Usategui (USE-a-ta-gooey), who pleaded guilty in 2003 to taking indecent liberties with a 15-year-old girl, wears a bulky ankle bracelet and carries a 2-pound monitoring device. The device transmits a signal to a satellite, which allows officials to use mapping software to locate an offender.

The maps show the location of schools, day-care centers and other areas that are off-limits to sex offenders, said Keith Acree, a spokesman for the state Department of Correction.

"It'll send an alert if the offender is the wrong place," Acree said. "Then we'll send out a probation officer."

Usategui, 30, says in his lawsuit against state officials that the program violates his state and federal constitutional rights to travel freely and not be subject to "unreasonable searches." He says the device is defective. He also charges that state officials might be misapplying the satellite monitoring law, which took effect after his conviction.

Messages left at Usategui's house were not returned. Usategui's attorney, Gerald Beaver of Fayetteville, and state officials would not comment about the lawsuit.

But in the suit, Beaver is critical of the monitoring program.

The state legislature in 2006 enacted a law that requires the worst sexual offenders to wear the monitoring device. Under the new law, offenders who are habitual, are convicted of aggravated offenses or are violent sexual predators are subject to the increased monitoring.

"It subjects him to the orders and directives of state overseers as to where he might lawfully be, when he might lawfully be there and what he might lawfully do, and further subjects him to public ridicule and condemnation much in the way of the 'ball and chain' or 'public stock' of bygone eras," Beaver says in the suit.

Usategui was charged in 2003 with several sex crimes, including statutory rape against a 15-year-old girl. According to the lawsuit, Usategui was accused of detaining the girl and having sex with her while three additional men participated.

The statutory rape charge was dropped, and he pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a child, communicating a threat and false imprisonment. He was placed on probation, violated the conditions and was sentenced in 2006 to more than a year in prison.

Usategui was released from prison after the law was passed, and a judge did not determine whether he was one of the worst offenders. The lawsuit says there were no terms or conditions of his release later that year except to register as a sex offender. Sex offenders must provide their addresses to the sheriff's office in the county where they're living.

A year later, two weeks after the law went into effect, Usategui said in the lawsuit, he received a letter from the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office saying that he had to be monitored or be prosecuted.

Usategui says in the lawsuit that the device sent false alerts that prompted correction officers to frequently investigate him. No specifics are offered.

The monitoring program requires that Usategui remain in North Carolina. The lawsuit says that requirement violates "the right to interstate travel."

"State actions that burden a fundamental interest, such as the right to interstate travel, are subject to strict scrutiny," the lawsuit says.

Beaver says in the suit that there should be a "less intrusive" way to carry out the program.

Legislators who sponsored the monitoring bill could not be reached Tuesday. But state officials agree that the new law has some unresolved questions.

"It's cases like this that will help determine where the boundaries are and how these programs develop in the future," Acree said. "This is new territory for North Carolina and a lot of other states."

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