Prosecutors took the first step Monday to indefinitely commit a Winona County child molester.

Winona County Attorney Chuck MacLean, through an assistant attorney general, filed a motion requesting numerous records from and about Scott Phillip Johnson, who was convicted in August for sexual conduct with a victim younger than 13.

Prosecutors must investigate mental, personal and psychological records of convicted sex offenders before petitioning a judge to commit them to the Minnesota Sex Offender Program. Inmates in the program are deemed sexually dangerous people or those with sexual psychopathic personalities.

Johnson, 31, was sentenced in September to 46 months in prison. MacLean said at the time he would likely ask that Johnson be indefinitely committed to a state sex offender program that houses inmates indefinitely.

When he was sentenced, Johnson was already serving a three-year prison term on a conviction last year for criminal sexual conduct. He also has two previous similar convictions in Minnesota and Hawaii. All of his convictions involved acts against pre-pubescent girls.

A Minnesota Depart-ment of Corrections' committee that screens sex offenders before they're released recommended in November 2008 that Johnson's case be forwarded for possible commitment, according to court records. At the time, Johnson was scheduled to be released in December 2009.

Court documents show Johnson has been kicked out of sex offender treatment programs multiple times dating back to 1996. If Johnson is not indefinitely committed, he will be placed on conditional release for the rest of his life.

Johnson is the second sex offender from Winona County to be considered for commitment this year. In September, Winona County District Judge Mary Leahy committed Jude Wilson Halter to the state sex offender program. Halter was convicted in 2003 of raping a Winona woman at gunpoint.

Since its inception in 1994, none of the state's sex offender program's more than 500 parolees have been released.