Judge Rejects Child Molester’s Request for Freedom

A child molester’s request to be released from a state treatment center has been rejected by a judge in Neosho. The judge says Joseph Johnson has to stay at the Farmington Correctional Center. Johnson finished his four year sentence for sexual assault in 1999 and became one of the first sex offenders the state decided to keep in custody because he was considered a violent predator. Johnson’s most recent prison term was for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl while he was on parole from a conviction of the statutory sodomy of a nine-year-old girl.