A Minneapolis man twice convicted of sexually assaulting teenagers is now accused of abusing a 12-year-old girl at a Farmington park.
He and the girl met through Snapchat, according to a Dakota County District Court complaint charging Joshua Daniel Philips, now 24, with first-degree criminal conduct.
Joshua Daniel Philips (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)
The other cases happened at parks in Cottage Grove and Otsego in Wright County, according to court records.
The first case documented in court records happened when an off-duty Cottage Grove police officer saw a sport-utility vehicle parked at Peter Thompson Park around 2 a.m. Nov. 14, 2022. The officer saw two people in the backseat and, because the park was closed, contacted on-duty officers.
A sergeant arrived at the park and saw two nude people in the middle-row seats. A 14-year-old girl told officers she had known the male for a few weeks, and that he told her to sneak out of her house, which she did. After getting to the park, he offered her vodka, which she did not drink.
She told police that he put one of his hands around her neck while he was having sexual contact with her. Police found empty packaging in Philip’s vehicle for a Plan B emergency contraception pill.
He was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and bonded out of jail.
Another assault reported
Then, in April 2023, the mother of another teen reported a sexual assault to law enforcement in Wright County. The 15-year-old sobbed when she told an investigator she was communicating with a male, known to her as Josh, through social media. She said he had been introduced to her by a classmate.
The male asked her to hang out, she agreed and he picked her up at her house. He asked her age and she told him she was 15, to which he said, “Oh, you’re just a baby,” according to the criminal complaint in that case.
He drove to Prairie Park in Otesgo, told her to move to the back seat and began sexually assaulting her. She said that when she pushed his arm away and asked what he was doing, he became mad and told her to get out of the car. She told the investigator she didn’t want to get out of the car because she did not have her phone and feared he would leave her there. He then removed her clothing and assaulted her.
She gave the investigator the suspect’s Snapchat name, and then picked Philips out of a photo lineup as her attacker. He was arrested.
Messages lead to Farmington case
When Philips was jailed in the Wright County case, law enforcement discovered messages on Philips’ phone last May that indicated he’d “been involved in a sexual relationship with” a girl in Farmington in March 2023, according to the new complaint filed in Dakota County this week.
In a forensic interview in May, the girl reported she met Philips through Snapchat and they began messaging one another. She said she told him she was 14, but she was 12 at the time.
She said she snuck out of her home to meet up with Philips on three occasions. On the last meetup, he drove to a park, gave her alcohol and had sexual contact with her in his vehicle, the complaint said. Philips gave her the morning-after pill the next day.
Messages found on Philips phone “confirm” the girl’s “version of events,” the complaint said.
In prison for Otsego assault
Philips is now in prison. A Wright County judge sentenced him on Nov. 27 to a term of just over six years for sexually assaulting the 15-year-old at the park in Otsego. It was the top of a sentencing range that Philips agreed to as part of a plea deal, which also included dismissing a first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge.
Last March, Philips pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct in the case of the 14-year-old in Cottage Grove, and was spared prison time as part of a plea deal with Washington County prosecutors. In June, he was sentenced to a stayed three-year term and put on probation for 15 years. His sentence did not include any additional jail time beyond the 365 days he had already served since his arrest.
Minnesota court records show Philips has no other prior convictions, besides a 2019 speeding ticket.
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