Arrest warrant issued for convicted Caddo County sex offender

ANADARKO — An arrest warrant was issued Wednesday for a convicted Caddo County sex offender.

The Caddo County District Court issued the warrant for Robert Shannon Hardesty, 52, of Carnegie, for his failure to appear after being issued a cost hearing summons on Feb. 16, records indicate.

Hardesty was convicted by a Caddo County jury in September 2022 for a felony count of sexual battery. Facing up to 10 years in prison, instead, he was sentenced Dec. 2, 2022, to serve one year with credit for time served and he was released from custody on Feb. 15, 2023. He will have to be on the sex offender registry and abide by sex offender rules of release.

Hardesty was charged Jan. 28, 2022, after being arrested following a 21-year-old woman’s complaint to Carnegie police. She told them she’d let Hardesty stay the night at her house and give him a ride home the next day. Once at his home, she said he threw himself on top of her inside her vehicle and touched her inappropriately, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Hardesty told investigators he was flirting with the woman before he got out of the vehicle and she sped away, the affidavit states. He denied being inappropriate but claimed he’d touched her when he “brushed dog hair off” her thigh.