A registered sex offender from Massachusetts will spend the next five years in an Ohio prison after pleading guilty to gross sexual imposition and failure to register as a sex offender Wednesday in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court.

Renault Danos, 31, who lists an address of 3738 State Route 93 on court records, pleaded guilty to one count of failure to register as a sex offender and one count of gross sexual imposition.

“A year ago in Massachusetts there was an incident with a child and he ended up pleading guilty to a similar charge,” Assistant Lawrence County Prosecutor Bob Anderson explained. “This is where count one (the failure to register charge) emanated from.”

In October 2009, Danos was arrested in Lawrence County for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl.

Authorities discovered then that Danos had taken up residence in Lawrence County without having notified the sheriff’s office, which, as a sex offender, he is required to do.

Judge D. Scott Bowling sentenced Danos to 18 months in prison on the failure to register charge and five years on the gross sexual imposition charge, to be served concurrently.

Both are the maximum sentences allowed under Ohio law.

Bowling ordered Danos to register as a sex offender for 25 years.

“Is this agreeable to the victim and her family?” Bowling asked Anderson.

Anderson said a member of the prosecutor’s office had spoken with the victim’s mother and she was agreeable to the sentence.

In another case, Richard J. Farris, 25, of 1078 Township Road 309, Chesapeake, admitted he violated his probation by flunking a drug test.

Farris was on probation for an earlier drug conviction.

Judge Charles Cooper sentenced Farris to a six-month rehabilitation program at the STAR Community Justice Center.