"Joshua Paul Green" waits to go before a judge in Lewis County Superior Court. / File photo
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – The man charged as Joshua Paul Green with cooking methamphetamine in his Centralia home pleaded not guilty today and found a judge authorizing a DNA test to verify his identity.
Green – or Jonah Andrew Farrer as he insisted to police was his real name – was in Lewis County Superior Court this morning for the second time this week.
A hearing was held before Judge James Lawler on Tuesday, because the defendant is allegedly a so-called fugitive from justice.
Attorneys said he has an outstanding felony warrant from Alabama because of a probation violation on a juvenile conviction. Green’s age is listed as 31.
He answered affirmatively in court when Judge Lawler asked if Green was his true name.
Lewis County Deputy Prosecutor Joely Yeager said today however “he is still denying he is Mr. Green.”
He is charged with multiple crimes following a police visit late last week to his Oxford Avenue home where they reportedly found a stolen gun, a loaded AR15 assault rifle just inside his front door and then numerous materials “consistent with a methamphetamine lab.”
He told his initial defense attorney he is in the business of growing coral, like that found in the sea.
He was arrested and booked early last month following a traffic stop in Centralia and gave his information as Jonah Farrer, 34 years old. Farrer’s driving status was suspended in Alabama.
When police went to his house last week to serve a protection order on Green regarding his girlfriend, he once again said he was Farrer.
The girlfriend told police she she had been dating him off and on for 10 years, has two children with him and did not know the name Farrer, according to charging documents.
An officer who subsequently checked with authorities in Alabama learned the Farrer name, birth date and social security number belonged to an individual who died in 2008.
Law enforcement teams last week sifted through what was initially estimated at more then 220 pounds of potentially hazardous chemicals in his two-story house.
A state Department of Ecologist hazard specialist who briefly entered the home to conduct air monitoring said there were oddities there that caused him to speculate if the resident was trying to make something he hadn’t seen before, perhaps something such as Ecstasy or maybe testing new “recipes”.
Centralia Police Department Sgt. Brian Warren, who has training in “clandestine” labs, concurred with the first police officer’s assessment it was a meth lab, according to charging documents.
Deputy Prosecutor Yeager said it will take several weeks to get the results from the laboratory tests back on the various substances found.
Green is charged with manufacture of methamphetamine, possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, possession of a stolen firearm and identity theft.
His trial was set for the week of May 21.
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For background, read “Unusual drug lab, guns and a mystery man” from Friday March 30, 2012 at 7:01 p.m., here