The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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August 29, 2009

Wanted man slips away

By Dan Nienaber

ST PETER — A predatory offender wanted by the Minnesota Department of Corrections managed to slip past a suspicious St. Peter police officer by allegedly using a fake name during a traffic stop.

While making a routine stop for a seat-belt violation July 13, a St. Peter police officer became suspicious about a passenger in the vehicle when the man said he didn’t have any identification with him. He initially told the officer his name was William Keith Larson and gave him a birth date.

When the officer came back and said there was no record of any one with that name and age, the man said he actually had two middle names. He told the officer to try William Keith Eugene Larson. That name checked out.

The officer, who had asked the woman driving the car if the name was accurate, was still suspicious, however. So he used a computer to find the license photo for Larson. The photo looked somewhat like the man, so the officer took a picture of the passenger and cited him for not having identification.

On Aug. 10, a city attorney told the officer Larson had been contacted and said he had been at work in Douglas County on July 13. When contacted, Larson said he suspected a former friend, 23-year-old Justin Michael Hanson of Moose Lake, was the passenger in the car stopped in St. Peter.

The officer contacted the driver, 20-year-old Nicole Lynn Simonson, and she said she knew her passenger’s name wasn’t Larson, but she was concerned about her safety, the officer reported.

He then used the picture he had taken to compare to a photograph of Hanson, who had a warrant for his arrest through the Department of Corrections. He had been released from prison in April after serving a two-year sentence for a criminal sexual conduct conviction. The warrant, which is still active, was issued after he failed to register as a predatory offender in July.

He also has a warrant for his arrest in Nicollet County, where he is wanted for giving a false name to a police officer.

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