photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mark Strand appears with his attorney, Jennifer Amyx, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

A property manager for a landlord accused of numerous child sex crimes testified on Monday that the landlord asked him to procure sworn affidavits from the alleged victims “recanting their story.”

According to the state, the 74-year-old landlord, Mark Duane Strand, dangled the promise of college scholarships as an inducement for two individuals to disavow their claims and to refuse to testify against him, although the inducement was never apparently communicated after the property manager went to the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office with the offer instead of to the alleged victims, who are now adults.

Strand is currently in the Douglas County Jail facing three counts of rape and five counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. After Monday’s hearing, he also will face prosecution for one count of attempted interference with judicial process, a felony, and intimidation of a witness or victim, a Class B misdemeanor.

According to the complaint, Strand is accused of sexually abusing three children, whose ages are not given in court documents but whose birth years are listed as 2006 and 2007. The sex crimes are alleged to have occurred between 2014 and 2018.

As the Journal-World reported, Strand was accused of sexually assaulting children in the care of one of his Lawrence tenants.

The tenant, Cormick Ferrell, was convicted in July 2023 of related crimes via a plea deal and was sentenced to four years in prison for aggravated sexual battery and aggravated child endangerment. He was originally accused of sexually trafficking children, 6 and 7 at the time, to Strand in exchange for rent.

On Monday, a man testified that he and his girlfriend manage several properties for Strand and live rent-free in one of them. The girlfriend has Strand’s power of attorney and handles various matters for him. The man testified that in December of last year he became aware of a letter from Strand addressed to the girlfriend asking him to go to the alleged victims and request that they sign sworn affidavits “recanting their story.”

The man said the letter was concerning because, although Strand “had always been a friend to me,” he didn’t want to get “implicated in what’s going on with this trial.” The man took the letter to the DA’s Office and indicated he was getting “drug into events that I want no part with.”

Strand’s attorney, Jennifer Amyx, argued to Judge Stacey Donovan that probable cause didn’t exist to add the interference and intimidation charges because Strand’s letter and the proposed affidavits could have come from an earlier date than December — namely when Strand was in federal custody in another case — and were intended to be part of a larger “packet” of materials from when Strand was trying to get the Douglas County warrant or detainer against him dropped and to gain compassionate release from prison. Amyx said the letter didn’t ask the property manager to contact the alleged victims directly, even though that is how the property manager understood the request, he testified.

“How else would I do it?” he told Amyx.

Amyx described the letter as “mere preparation to contact” the alleged victims. “There’s no overt act,” she told the court, because no offer was ever directly communicated.

However, Deputy District Attorney David Melton told the judge that “there is no other reasonable interpretation” other than an intent to get the alleged victims to sign the affidavits recanting their testimony — with college scholarships as the inducement to do so.

At a hearing like Monday’s, a judge must look at the evidence in the light most favorable to the state and decide whether probable cause exists to believe a crime was committed and that the defendant committed it — a low bar, Donovan noted, as she bound Strand over on the additional felony count.

Strand waived arraignment and entered a plea of not guilty. His next court date is set for April 14, when further scheduling will take place.

Strand is a longtime resident of Lawrence who worked at the University of Kansas for 20 years — from November 1997 until he retired in December 2017. He worked as a building and facility manager for the university’s School of Business.

According to Douglas County real estate records, Strand purchased four properties between 2005 and 2016.

Strand accepted a plea deal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in December 2019, when he was convicted of knowingly attempting to coerce and entice a minor to engage in sexual activity.

An affidavit supporting Strand’s arrest on the federal charge says that in April 2017 he responded to a Craigslist advertisement and said he was looking for “taboo” sexual activity, but unbeknownst to him he was communicating with federal agents. He reportedly expressed interest in sexual activity with a 9-year-old and discussed traveling to Miami. He shared a photo of himself that had been published on KU’s website, which showed his real name, phone, email and home address.

Strand continued to discuss the plan with the agents until February 2018. Conversations then stopped for about a year, but Strand re-initiated discussions in May 2019, when he said he was now retired and wished to travel to Florida. He again expressed interest in sexual activity with the purported child, who the agents told him would have been 12 at the time. Strand reportedly told the agents he would pay $100 to engage in sexual activity with the girl. On July 12, 2019, he traveled to Miami Beach, where he met an undercover agent and was arrested.

He was sentenced on Feb. 26, 2020, to 12 years in prison for the conviction.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Mark Strand appears with his attorney, Jennifer Amyx, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Douglas County District Court. Deputy District Attorney David Melton is at right.