photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World Photo

Mark Duane Strand is pictured on Feb. 26, 2026, in Douglas County District Court.

A 74-year-old man accused of numerous sex crimes involving children is now facing charges of intimidating the victims in the case, who are now adults, and attempting to interfere with the judicial process.

The new charges were filed Monday by the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office in an amended complaint against Mark Duane Strand, a federal convict who is now in the Douglas County Jail on the local charges.

Strand was already facing three counts of rape and five counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child before the felony interference and misdemeanor intimidation charges were added Monday. 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 a landlord who 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.

photo by: Kansas Department of Corrections

Cormick Ferrell

The two new charges against Strand stem from allegations that in December 2025 Strand took actions intended to thwart witnesses and victims from giving evidence against him. Details about the allegations are not provided in available court documents, but Strand is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing on April 6 before Judge Stacey Donovan.

Strand is a longtime resident of Lawrence who worked at the University of Kansas for 20 years.

Erinn Barcomb-Peterson, a spokeswoman for the university, told the Journal-World in 2021 that he was employed by the university from November 1997 until he retired in December 2017. He worked as a building and facility manager for the university’s School of Business.

Strand was also a landlord for a few properties in Lawrence. According to Douglas County real estate records, he owned four properties in Lawrence: two homes and two apartment units. He purchased all four properties between 2005 and 2016, the records show.

According to federal court documents, 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.

According to an affidavit supporting Strand’s arrest on the federal charge, 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.

He 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.