Wanted Fugitive Arrested in Stearns County

(KNSI) — A fugitive wanted by the Minnesota Department of Corrections was arrested in St. Cloud on Friday.

The DOC had 60-year-old John Ronald Zwirtz on its list of wanted fugitives for just one day before being taken into custody in Stearns County.

Zwirtz, whose mailing address is in St. Cloud, was charged in Anoka County with first and second-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2018. According to the criminal complaint, in 2016, an 11-year-old girl told investigators with the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office that she was touched inappropriately by a neighbor she knew only as John when she was between the ages of six and nine. She told police John lived next door to her in Oak Grove, and on numerous occasions, he would have her come over and get undressed in front of her and make her touch him and touched her.

The criminal complaint says John, later identified as Zwirtz, denied during his initial interview with police that he had any sexual contact with the girl but did admit to remembering who she was and that she lived nearby. He said he had a hard time remembering some of the details, but in a later interview, he admitted that he lived in Oak Grove and the child lived in the neighborhood. He also allegedly told police she would come over and pull his pants down and touch him but denied further sexual contact.

Zwirtz pled guilty to the second-degree charge and was sentenced in 2019 to four years in the St. Cloud prison with credit for time served and 99 years of supervised release. The DOC website says Zwirtz was released in October of 2020 and was a wanted fugitive as of January 27th. Jail records show he was booked into the Stearns County jail on January 28th. It’s not clear why the warrant was issued.

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