University police arrested a University employee, who is a registered sex offender in Oregon, on Sept. 6 for what officials believe to be failure to register in Texas, a third-degree felony in the state.
UTPD detained Nicholas Clisby, who asked to be referred to as Nicholas Clisby-Sabathia, a McCombs School of Business human resources employee. The department received a tip that he had not registered his sex offender status within seven days of moving to Texas as required by state law despite residing in Texas since 2023. Clisby-Sabathia has a scheduled court date in Travis County on Sept. 27.
The Daily Texan received a tip on Sept. 7 from the same source as UTPD about Clisby-Sabathia’s arrest. The source had a brief personal relationship with the arrested individual.
After informing the McComb’s human resources department of their intent to arrest him, UTPD detained Clisby-Sabathia in the McCombs Administration building at approximately 3 p.m., University Detective Scott Stanfield said in an email. Clisby-Sabathia said in an interview he felt like police didn’t accurately research his previous case records before issuing an arrest warrant.
“(The) situation where I was with the police, where I was kind of begging them to pull records, and they were refusing to pull records,” Clisby-Sabathia said. “Then having to fight … I have to defend against something that’s not true.”
Clisby-Sabathia was previously convicted in Portland, Oregon, in 2014 for using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct. Later that year, the charge was amended to “attempting to commit a Class A felony.”
Clisby-Sabathia said he believed his 2014 conviction was “overturned” and he did not have to register in Texas. Both the Multnomah County Circuit Court in Oregon and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office said there is no report of Clisby-Sabathia filing an appeal regarding his conviction.
Clisby-Sabathia started working for the University in June, according to the affidavit. The University terminated his employment after learning about his sex offender status and failure to register, UT spokesperson Mike Rosen said Sept. 11 in an email. Rosen said the University performed the required background check before hiring Clisby-Sabathia, but it did not reveal an “accurate prior history.”
The University requires a criminal background check for every job applicant using its Background Check Administration System, which gathers information from nationwide databases, including law enforcement records and sex offender registries, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. However, the commission states records can sometimes be incomplete and lack information about convictions and resulting sentences.
Clisby-Sabathia is registered as a level-two sex offender in Oregon, said Dale Hoffman, operations manager in the Sex Offender Registration section of the Oregon State Police Department, in an email. According to an Oregon statute, this designation does not influence registration requirements, but reflects the crime’s severity and the likelihood to reoffend. Only level-three offenders appear in Oregon’s online database, so Clisby-Sabathia will not appear in a public search.
Clisby-Sabathia was informed in the initial 2014 registry notice he would need to contact the official agency in his new state of residence within 10 days of moving under Oregon law, according to the case records.
The arrest affidavit said Clisby-Sabathia reported in person to the Portland Police Department on Aug. 9 for his required annual registration and made no mention of residence or employment in another state. An Oregon public information office later confirmed his appearance on Aug. 9 in an email. Clisby-Sabathia said he was in Austin on that day and declined to comment further on whether he had previously reported to the office.
Clisby-Sabathia said he has no attorney at this time and expects his case to be dismissed.
