LAKE COUNTY, Fla. -- Four people were arrested in a Lake County home because deputies say they were trying to hide a registered sex offender.

Lake County sheriff's deputies were looking for 28-year-old John Bracewell, a registered sex offender. Deputies had a warrant for his arrest because they say he didn't register a new home address. They got a tip he was in a house on Ferndale Road but the four people inside were not giving him up.

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"They met with the occupants, asked if he was there and they told the deputies he was not," said Sgt. John Herrell of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies didn't believe the people inside so they searched the home and found Bracewell hiding in the attic, covered with insulation.

"The person they were after, my son didn't know he was in the house," said Terry Metts.

But deputies arrested Mett's son, Shawn Ruales, and three friends and charged them with hiding Bracewell. The charges of harboring a sex offender are third degree felonies. Lake County officials think they may be the first in the state to file them. The charges are part of the Jessica Lunsford Act, which was passed in 2005.

"We have a zero tolerance," said Herrell. "Anyone who harbors a sex offender is going to go jail just like the four who went today."

There are more than 300 registered sex offenders in Lake County.