Testimony from a 6-year-old girl wrapped up the first day of a child molestation trial in Buchanan County Monday.
The defendant already is serving time for failure to register as a sex offender.
Prosecutors allege Daniel Rogers, 36, of St. Joseph inappropriately touched a then 5-year-old girl on May 6, 2008, when the two were sleeping in the same living room of her grandfather's South Side home.
The state has charged Mr. Rogers with first-degree child molestation, a Class B felony. He pleaded not guilty and on Monday appeared before Buchanan County Circuit Judge Randall Jackson in Division 1. He wore a button-down purple shirt and donned a goatee in the morning for jury selection, but by the start of the trial in the afternoon, he'd shaved all of his facial hair.
Mr. Rogers, a friend of the victim's mother and the mother's boyfriend, had resided at the home for multiple months with the couple, the girl, the girl's grandparents and her 10-year-old sister, according to opening arguments from both prosecuting and defense attorneys. He and the girl routinely slept separately in the same open living area, reportedly.
The victim's grandfather testified Monday that when he woke up that May 2008 morning, he saw Mr. Rogers sleeping next to the girl on a stow-away mattress on the living room floor.
The 6-year-old then appeared in court, identified Mr. Rogers and said he'd touched her in the middle of the night.
"She was sure it was him that was touching her," said Pam Blevins, assistant prosecuting attorney for Buchanan County.
But private defense attorney Merle Turner said it wasn't uncommon for the victim to crawl into the bed of her grandparents or mother if she was scared or had a bad dream.
"(She's) liable to say just about anything," Ms. Turner said to jurors. "I will only ask that you listen carefully and not jump to any conclusions."
It was during a police investigation of the May incident that detectives discovered Mr. Rogers hadn't updated his address with the sex offender registry. His prior offense didn't occur locally, according to police. The News-Press couldn't locate Mr. Rogers on any Missouri or national registries.
Mr. Rogers pleaded guilty to the Class D felony of failing to register as a sex offender and in September 2008 was sentenced to serve four years with the Missouri Department of Corrections. In 2006, Mr. Rogers also pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor offense of failure to complete and submit offender registration forms to chief law enforcement and was sentenced to 39 days of jail time in Buchanan County.
Monday's jury selection yielded 12 jurors and one alternate, which included eight men and five women.
Attorneys expect testimony to last through Wednesday.
Alyson E. Raletz can be reached at alysonraletz@npgco.com.
