Schoolteacher enters guilty plea to child sex charges

In April of last year, Historic City News reported that 30 year-old Joshua Michael Johnson, a schoolteacher for the Nassau County School District, had been arrested during the execution of an undercover sting operation; targeting online sexual predators.

Today, State Attorney R. J. Larizza in St Augustine reported to Historic City News that Johnson, who has been free on $50,000 bail since his arrest, pled guilty to the charge of traveling to engage in sexual conduct with a child — a second-degree felony.

According to the St Johns County Sheriff’s Office 2011 incident report, Johnson was living at 86018 Harrahs Place in Yulee. He answered an online ad posted by an undercover agent as part of a multi-jurisdictional sexual predator investigation being conducted in northeast Florida that was nicknamed “Operation Sheepdog”.

During Johnson’s reply, he solicited sex from the officer who was posing as a 14 year-old boy. Johnson arranged to meet the teenager for sex at an undercover residence in St Augustine, where he was taken into custody.

“Technology has made our families extremely vulnerable to sexual predators targeting children,” Larizza told Historic City News. “In this case, my Assistant State Attorney, Jennifer Dunton, will seek a prison term, designation as a sex offender and the surrender of the Johnson’s teaching certificate.”

Circuit Judge Wendy Berger has scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 12, 2012 at 9:00 a.m., as the presentence investigation continues.