Metro Police

Officers escort Joseph Warren, 34, into the Clark County Detention Center on Tuesday, March 7, 2017, after his arrest in the sexual assault of a woman at Freedom Park on March 1, 2017, according to MetroPolice.

By Ricardo Torres-Cortez (contact)

Friday, March 10, 2017 | 6 p.m.

Investigators used DNA to link a registered sex offender to a sexual assault of a woman at Freedom Park last week, according to a Metro Police arrest report released today.

Joseph Warren has a history of arrests on suspicion of sex-related crimes that date back about a decade, police said. He was linked to an incident in late January in which he was seen masturbating in the driveway of a home about half a mile from the scene of the crime.

That case remained open at the time of the attack on the woman he encountered walking near the park in the early hours of March 1, according to police.

The arrest report states that the victim was walking, smoking a cigarette and carrying a bag of fast food when Warren approached her and engaged in small talk: First he asked for a cigarette and then asked what she was doing out so late.

Warren continued talking and followed her through the park, police said. He told her he wanted to hang out and to hold up because he needed to use the bathroom.

When she told him she was going to keep walking, Warren pulled her from behind as he choked her, police said. He then pulled out a meth pipe and forced the victim to take a hit, she told detectives.

The attack lasted several minutes in which Warren kept telling her that she was making it worse than it needed to be, according to the report.

A woman sleeping at the park later told police that she'd heard a woman's screams for about 20 minutes and later saw what appeared to be the shadow of a man running from the bathroom area, police said.

The victim summoned police to the park, 850 N. Mojave Rd., about 3:30 a.m., immediately after the attack, according to the report.

Authorities had obtained Warren's DNA profile after a Las Vegas sexual assault case from 2006, police said.

Warren registered as a sex offender after a 2006 conviction in a sex assault case for which he was ordered to serve at least two years in prison on one count of coercion, court records show. The sexual assault charge was either amended or dropped, records show.

After Warren's latest arrest, he was identified as a suspect in a similar sexual assault case from last April, police said. Detectives were awaiting results of a DNA analysis to move forward.

In 2011, he was arrested for failing to register a new address with Metro Police, according to the report.

In October 2015, Warren was arrested in North Las Vegas on suspicion of peeping through the opening of a home, according to the arrest report. Information on the status of that case wasn't immediately available.

A few months later, he was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with a two counts of open and gross lewdness for a similar incident, police said. That case was later closed and the outcome of it wasn't clear, according to court records.

Metro said on Thursday that they released his photo to the public in an effort to try to identify other possible victims, spokeswoman officer Laura Meltzer said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Metro at 702-828-3421. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555 or online at crimestoppersofnv.com.

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Suspect in Freedom Park attack has history of sex-related crimes, police say - Las Vegas Sun