A 52-year-old Little Rock man accused of masturbating in front of a teenage girl who was visiting his home was convicted of sexual indecency with a child Wednesday, fined $10,000 and sentenced to six months in prison.
The felony conviction also requires Richard Marlin Springer to register as a sex offender.
Jurors seated before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright considered the evidence about an hour before returning their guilty verdict and deliberated about an hour more on sentencing. The maximum penalty for the Class D felony is six years in prison, and Springer could have been sentenced to probation.
Prosecutors Amanda Fields and Michael Wright told jurors that Springer counted on the girl never telling anyone and was selective about when he would expose himself.
"This man is smart enough to know who he should and shouldn't be masturbating in front of," Fields said.
His accuser, a 17-year-old Bryant girl who had been a regular visitor at his Pine Summit Court home for years, testified he had masturbated in front of her at least a "handful" of times.
Springer's wife was always at home when the encounters occurred but she was out of the room tending to the couple's daughter when he exposed himself, the girl said during her 90 minutes of testimony Tuesday.
The girl said she didn't tell her parents or police until March 2013, saying she decided to come forward because she worried that Springer would expose himself similarly in front of his daughter. She said she hadn't told anyone before because she was afraid that Springer's marriage would break up and his little girl would not have a father.
"I wanted to get it off my chest," she said.
The trial focused on a single 2010 incident at the Springer home when the girl was 13. She testified that she and another 13-year-old girl were spending the night at the home when she saw, from a guest bedroom, Springer sexually gratifying himself in the kitchen. The girl said she called on her friend to look at what he was doing before she closed the bedroom door.
The friend, a 17-year-old Maumelle girl, testified she "took a little glance" into the kitchen and saw Springer, visibly aroused, manipulating himself with one hand through his shorts but she didn't see his penis.
"It kind of scarred me," that girl told jurors.
Springer's wife, 40-year-old Luz Springer, said she confronted her husband when the girl made the accusations and that he tearfully admitted to exposing himself to the girl and apologized. She said she immediately demanded a divorce.
Choosing to testify after jurors reached their guilty verdict, Richard Springer said Wednesday that the accusations were "lies" orchestrated by his wife to force him to give her the deed to his home, which he had purchased before their marriage in September 2008. She also wanted to keep him away from their daughter, he said.
"They said if you don't do this, we're going to turn it over to the police," he said. "They wanted me out of the way, plain and simple. I didn't do anything."
Springer is the youngest son of the late physician Worthie Springer, one of the first black graduates of the University of Arkansas College of Medicine. Springer Boulevard in Little Rock is named after the family. He was represented by John Walker, the civil-rights attorney and state representative, and Walker's nephew, Lawrence "Tony" Walker.
John Walker told jurors to consider how the girl took two weeks to tell police after making the accusations against Springer to her family. It's "unbelievable" that a man would wait until his wife left the room to pleasure himself in front of the girl, Walker said.
Metro on 07/24/2014