Anonymous tip leads to arrest of convicted sex offender

~ Eric L. Johnson, 30, is charged with failing to follow state registration laws.

A Cape Girardeau man convicted of sodomy against a young girl in 1995 was arrested Wednesday for failing to register as a sex offender following an anonymous tip to the Cape Girardeau Police Department.

Eric L. Johnson, 30, of 813 S. Sprigg St., was in custody at the Cape Girardeau County Jail Thursday evening with a $7,500 bond. He is the 10th person charged with failing to follow state registration laws in the last two months in Cape Girardeau County.

Johnson's status was discovered after Cape Girardeau police investigated an anonymous tip that identified him only as "Eric," gave his address and said he lived with a Jessica Lawson, Sgt. Barry Hovis said.

Lawson, Johnson's wife, is seeking a state license to open a day care for 48 children at 234 N. Sprigg St. They were married June 3, according to records at the Cape Girardeau County Recorder of Deeds office.

Lawson and partner Kelli Puchbauer, operating under the name Little Hoppers Daycare Center, have applied for a license to care for 48 children, said Susan Porting, assistant bureau chief of the Bureau of Child Care at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. The application is pending, she said, but Johnson's past convictions won't have any bearing on his wife's application as long as he is not an officer of the company or an employee, she said.

"We have no rule that would require a background screening on him," she said.

"This is a facility that is not where she lives and not where he lives."

Johnson served a five-year sentence for the sodomy, winning release July 2, 2005. He served the full term of his sodomy sentence after violating his probation in 1998.

Following his 1995 conviction, Johnson served 120 days in state prison, then won release on probation.

Unaccounted for

Brian Hauswirth, a spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections, said Johnson then failed to report his whereabouts for almost three years.

Johnson registered only once, reporting Oct. 18, 2000, that he resided at 415 Bellevue St., said Sgt. Sharon Jones, who manages the sex offender registry for the Cape Girardeau County Sheriff's Department.

That registration was one month after he had been arrested on the probation violation warrant. "That was the first time he came in to register," Jones said. "That is the only time he came in."

On Jan. 10, 2001, while awaiting court action on his probation violation, Johnson was charged with third-degree domestic assault. He pleaded guilty Feb. 20, 2001, and was placed on probation. He was ordered to stay at least 550 feet away from Lawson, his girlfriend at the time, and have no direct or indirect contact with her.

At that time, he listed his address as 813 S. Sprigg St. but had not reported his new address to the sheriff's department.

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle said his office did not investigate at the time whether Johnson was registered. The prosecutor's office only acts on referrals from police agencies.

Johnson began serving the full sentence for the 1995 sodomy conviction on March 7, 2001, and was released from the Department of Corrections on July 2, 2005, Hauswirth said.

While Johnson was in prison, his local probation officer turned him in for failing to report, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The warrant was recalled Jan. 20, 2005, with the notation that the court was "unable to locate defendant."

The charges filed last month against nine men for failing to register are part of a stepped-up enforcement effort between Swingle's office and the sheriff's department. Of those, six have been arrested and three are still wanted.

"We expect to see a lot more filed because they are being very aggressive with it," Swingle said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 126