“As Attorney General, I will always work to protect Missouri’s most vulnerable,” said Attorney General Bailey. “As a former prosecutor and an adoptive parent, defending children is personal to me. My office will continue to use every tool at its disposal to take violent predators off the street.”
A St. Charles County jury committed Witte as an SVP on July 13, 2023, following a four-day trial. Paul Witte admitted to having inappropriate sexual contact and committing sex offenses with at least eleven victims up until he was arrested at 28 years old. In 1996, Witte was charged with multiple counts of statutory sodomy against a 12-year-old boy and ultimately pled guilty to 3 counts of statutory sodomy in the first degree in 1997. He was sentenced to twenty-five years at the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Witte was released on parole in December of 2016, after which he committed several violations, such as talking to children in public places, looking at pornography, and befriending a family with small children in his victim age range. He was terminated from outpatient sex offender treatment and returned to prison for engaging in high risk behavior. Following his reimprisonment, the Missouri Department of Corrections referred Witte as a sexually violent predator to the Attorney General’s Office.
The case was tried by assistant attorneys general Jennifer Coffin and Corie Geary-Atkins, and investigated by Missouri’s sexually violent predator commitment unit.