Two sex offenders waive hearings on alleged registration violations

Jeff Lehr, The Joplin Globe, Mo.
·1 min read

Apr. 25—Two sex offenders residing in Jasper County have been ordered bound over for trial on charges they violated the state's sex offender registration laws.

Ray E. Poole, 62, of rural Joplin, waived a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Jasper County Circuit Court on two counts of the offense filed on him in 2023 and again this year. His initial appearance in a trial division of the court was set for May 15.

Poole was convicted in 1993 of sodomy and sexual abuse in Taney County and is required to register with the sheriff's office in the county in which he resides, according to court records.

A Jasper County sheriff's investigator purportedly discovered last year that he had been evicted from his registered address on Belle Center Road and was living on the streets in Joplin. The same detective checked with the Watered Gardens ministry in December 2023, which Poole had provided as his new address, and discovered that he had not been staying there since October. The second count was not filed until after the first of this year.

The detective also learned in December that Mark J. Kiefer, 43, another sex offender who listed Watered Gardens as his address, had not been residing there for more than 10 days. Kiefer has a 2002 conviction in Jasper County for sexual misconduct and is required to register as sex offender.

He was given an initial appearance date of June 3 in a trial division of the court.

Jeff Lehr is a reporter for The Joplin Globe.