photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Joseph A. Long appeared Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, in Douglas County District Court, on charges that he sexually abused a 6-year-old.

A Lawrence man on Wednesday was ordered to stand trial on charges that he committed sex crimes against a 6-year-old girl.

The defendant, Joseph A. Long, 42, is facing one count of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and one count of aggravated criminal sodomy. Both charges are off-grid felonies that could result in a life sentence if he is convicted.

Judge Stacey Donovan found probable cause to bind Long over on the charges after she heard testimony from the mother of the girl, who will soon turn 10, and a Lawrence police detective and crime scene technician coordinator who investigated the allegations.

The mother, avoiding looking at Long, testified that her daughter initiated a conversation as the two of them, in the spring of 2022, were walking home from school, where the girl had just heard a “safe touch” presentation. The girl asked if an adult who learned about inappropriate touching could get in trouble, and the mother said no, that the adult would be there for the child and would take action to protect her.

The girl became withdrawn for the rest of the day, the mother said, but tearfully disclosed the next day that a man in their neighborhood, Long, had touched her inappropriately twice in his home.

“I felt like I got hit by a truck,” the mother told the court. “I couldn’t breathe. I threw up.”

She testified that her daughter feared something bad would happen to the mother if she said anything about the incidents.

“He told me if I told anyone that you would go away forever,” she said her daughter told her, and “I don’t want to lose you.”

The mother then reported the incidents to police, who interviewed the girl and began an investigation. The alleged offenses occurred between December 2020 and April 2021, and Long was arrested in April of this year. He has been released on a $100,000 surety bond, as the Journal-World reported.

Long’s attorney, Carl Cornwell, on Wednesday sought to cast doubt on the girl’s version of events, seeming to suggest that a neighborhood boy instead was responsible for the incidents that the girl remembered. Cornwell also questioned Lawrence Police Detective Evan Curtis, who had interviewed the girl, about why the girl’s mother was allowed in the room when Curtis was interviewing the girl, a circumstance that Curtis acknowledged was unusual.

Curtis said it was because the girl had started to cry and requested her mother’s presence.

Curtis said that when he stepped out of the room the girl, who was then alone, used dolls to indicate how the neighbor had touched her, which was caught on video.

Cornwell asked the detective about several things the mother said in the room, such as urging the girl to “tell the truth” and to “just say it once,” which he suggested were leading. He also suggested that the mother telling the girl that they would get ice cream afterward was a “bribe.”

After Donovan found probable cause for Long to stand trial, he pleaded not guilty, and she set his next court appearance for Jan. 7, 2025.

Long has convictions in Johnson County in 2017 for one felony count of aggravated incest and one felony count of aggravated intimidation of a victim, according to Kansas Department of Corrections records. He has been required to register as a sex offender until 2045.