The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

Joplin Metro

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June 29, 2009

Carl Junction man gets three years in prison

By Jeff Lehr

jlehr@joplinglobe.com

A Carl Junction man was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching an underage girl.

Robert Charles Walker, 48, pleaded guilty in Jasper County Circuit Court in Joplin to a charge of first-degree child endangerment in a plea agreement with the county prosecutor’s office that required that Walker serve a three-year term. He faced up to seven years in prison for a conviction on the charge.

Walker waived his right to a sentencing-assessment report as part of the agreement. Judge Gayle Crane sentenced the defendant to the specified prison term.

A probable-cause affidavit filed by a Jasper County Sheriff’s Department detective states that near the end of September of last year, the defendant inappropriately touched a 14-year-old girl.

The girl had fallen asleep on a bed, and Walker got into bed with her and groped her through her clothing, according to the affidavit. Walker reportedly told the sheriff’s investigator that it was possible he had committed the crime, but that he was drunk and did not remember.

The defendant initially was charged with child molestation but was bound over for trial on an amended felony charge of child endangerment.

In a separate case, a Joplin man pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property and failing to register as a sex offender.

John W. Richardson, 37, 210 S. Brownell Ave., changed his pleas to guilty on both counts in an agreement with the prosecutor’s office. The agreement would limit the prison time he might be assessed for the stolen-property count to seven years and for the sex-offender-registration count to four years.

Crane postponed acceptance or rejection of the plea agreement, and ordered the completion of a sentencing-assessment report. The judge set Richardson’s sentencing hearing for Aug. 31.

Richardson was convicted of second-degree child molestation in 2006 in Jasper County for an incident involving a 6-year-old victim. A probable-cause affidavit filed by a Jasper County sheriff’s investigator states that Richardson was arrested in January of this year after failing to update his sex-offender registration within 90 days, as required by state law. He had last updated the registration in June of last year.

Another affidavit filed by Joplin police states that Richardson was found in possession of a stolen flat-screen television set on Oct. 21 of last year. He reportedly was seen carrying the television valued at $1,895 through a yard in the 1900 block of South Harlem Avenue next to a home that had been burglarized.

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