Convicted sex offender facing new charges involving teen girl

JAMESTOWN, N.D. (Valley News Live) - Almost exactly one year after being convicted on charges that forced a Jamestown man to have to register as a sex offender, new charges have been filed for his sexually explicit involvement with a teenage girl online.

23-year-old Matthew Ray Johnson is charged in Stutsman County Court with five felonies including possession of prohibited materials, indecent exposure, luring minors by computer and two counts of failure to comply with sex offender registration requirements.

Court documents say Jamestown Police took a report for a runaway teenager on May 3, who was last seen walking on 4th Ave. NW with a male. Police state the teen girl and Johnson have had contact with each other in the past, and Johnson matched the description of the male walking with the teen. This prompted officers to show up at Johnson’s door for questioning, documents state.

One officer asked Johnson if he could look at Johnson’s phone to see who he had been contacting recently, and to make sure he hadn’t been contacting the teen girl. Johnson is prohibited from speaking with the teen as he was convicted on one felony county of corruption of a minor in May 2021. Court documents in that case state Johnson had sex with the girl, who was 15-years-old at the time.

Officers noted Johnson had Snapchat on his phone while looking through it, which is a violation of his probation as documents state he had not registered any accounts on the app with the Jamestown Police Department. Documents say Johnson was shaking while holding his phone, and told officers he was nervous because he had nude photos of women, but stated they were all of age.

“Most people with photographs of naked women on their phone who are older than 18 don’t react this way,” one of the officers replied.

Documents say when police later executed a search warrant on Johnson’s phone they found he had accounts with Tinder, TextNow, Twitch, Discord, Xbox, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Google Chat, all of which were not registered with the police department and a direct violation of his parole and probation.

While searching through Johnson’s social media, detectives found a conversation on Instagram between Johnson and a teen girl from Alabama. Documents say Johnson asked the girl to send him nude photos and Johnson responding he wanted to have sex with the young teen. Investigators also found Johnson had sent two unsolicited photos of his genitals to two separate women on a texting app.

If convicted, Johnson could spend the next five years in prison. His next court date is June 15.