photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Jonathan S. Nelson

Updated at 10:53 a.m. Thursday:

Five years and a month after his arrest, a man has pleaded no contest in a child solicitation case — though he noted to the judge that he maintains his innocence and does not believe a jury would have convicted him.

Jonathan S. Nelson, 47, was arrested May 10, 2015, after he allegedly asked a young girl at Fuzzy’s Tacos, 1115 Massachusetts St., to accompany him into the men’s restroom.

He was initially charged with aggravated indecent solicitation of a child. However, a since-retired judge agreed with Nelson’s defense counsel and threw the case out because prosecutors had not proved a sex act that Nelson had intended to commit in that men’s restroom.

The Kansas Court of Appeals overturned that dismissal, however, and Nelson was booked back into the Douglas County Jail on Aug. 5, 2019. He’d considered representing himself for his trial and, in written motions, detailed what he called the “bizarro defense.” Eventually, though, he agreed to a court-appointed attorney.

During a hearing Wednesday, Nelson pleaded no contest and Douglas County District Court Chief Judge James McCabria found him guilty of aggravated battery, a low-level felony, and two misdemeanors, criminal restraint and lewd and lascivious behavior.

Senior Assistant District Attorney Alice Walker said the state would agree to recommend three years of probation for Nelson, with an underlying sentence of 44 months should his probation be revoked. Nelson will be required to register as a sex offender for life, though he’d already been required to register after a child pornography conviction in 2010, the Journal-World previously reported.

Nelson, who lamented his “manchild pod” in the Douglas County Jail and expressed concern about people not following social distancing guidelines, returned to court Thursday morning for a hearing on a bond modification.

He has been awaiting trial on $100,000 cash or surety bond, but on Thursday, McCabria agreed to modify that to an own-recognizance bond. Since he will presumably receive probation, he will be allowed out of jail to return to his new town, Las Cruces, N.M., pending his sentencing on Aug. 10.

As a bond condition, Nelson is to have no contact — in person or online — with any minors, or with the victim and her family.