Jefferson City man accused of raping children in 2012
Ryan Shiner
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Jefferson City man who is currently incarcerated has been charged with several child sex crimes dating back to 2012.
Joe Stevens, 39, was charged on Wednesday in Cole County with two counts of first-degree statutory rape, one count of forcible rape, three counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of first-degree child molestation, one count of sexual misconduct involving a child, one count of child abuse and one count of first-degree endangering the welfare of a child.
He is being held at South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Missouri, and is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree assault on July 18, 2024, in Camden County. A court date has not been set.
The probable cause statement says that one of the child victims – now 16 – spoke with a forensic interviewer last month about sexual assaults committed by Stevens when the victim was 3 or 4 years old. The victim allegedly disclosed the assaults to a therapist, recently.
Court documents describe multiple assaults by Stevens on the victim and the victim claimed to witness Stevens rape their sibling, who was also a child at the time.
The assaults occurred nearly every day and the victim claimed Stevens told them not to tell anyone and claimed no one would believe them because the victim was a child, the statement says. A sibling described seeing an assault to law enforcement, the statement says.
Stevens allegedly denied the allegations and claimed “’they’ are trying to make the victim believe it was him that did it,” the statement says.