California ? A sex offender wanted for questioning in the disappearance of a 19-year-old college student has been arrested in Jacksonville, Fla., a sheriff’s spokesman said Thursday.

John Steven Burgess, 35, was arrested late Tuesday on a California warrant for failing to register as a sex offender, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County sheriff’s department.

Donna Jou, a student at San Diego State University, has not been seen since June 23, when she went with Burgess to a west Los Angeles party. A day later, her mother received a text message that said her cell phone battery was dying, but she’d be home soon.

Burgess was convicted of three counts of battery in 2002 and of performing a lewd act against a child the following year.