Mar. 6—BEMIDJI — A Bemidji man has been sentenced to 21 months in prison followed by eight years of supervised release for knowingly failing to register as a sex offender in Minnesota.

According to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice, in June 2009, 34-year-old Stephon Rene Jones, of Bemidji, was convicted of molesting a 7-year-old child in LaPorte County, Indiana.

Based on this conviction, Jones is a Tier III sex offender under federal law. As a Tier III sex offender, Jones was aware that he was required to register as a sex offender for life and complete verification every three months, the release said.

Jones was also required to give registration updates within three days of changing where he lived, worked, or attended school, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA.

However, starting in 2018, Jones evaded his registration requirement for five years after he moved from Indiana to Minnesota.

Jones also admitted that he fraudulently used aliases and others’ names and social security numbers in order to get jobs in Minnesota in 2022 and 2023, most recently at the Concordia Language Villages, according to the criminal complaint.

The Pioneer is awaiting comment from Concordia on Jones’ employment status.

Jones pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2023, in U.S. District Court to one count of failure to register as a sex offender. He was sentenced on Monday and has a lifetime registration requirement as required under SORNA.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office.