Chris Thyer, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, has asked to drop federal indictments against three northeast Arkansas men who were indicted in 2013 on accusations of trying to entice a minor into sexual activity.
Thyer said in a news release Wednesday that the three have all pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault in Craighead County Circuit Court and been sentenced there, so there is no need to pursue federal indictments against them.
The three are Kenneth Wayne Thompson, 23, of Bradford; Benjamin Cade Vardell, 20, of Jonesboro; and Lucas Aaron Oden, 20, of Paragould. Thompson and Vardell were jointly indicted in August 2013, while Oden was separately indicted that same month.
In a news release issued after Thompson's and Vardell's arrests, Thyer said the men had sent text messages to the cellphone of a runaway girl in 2012. They were charged with enticing a minor to engage in activity that can constitute rape under Arkansas law.
Oden's indictment said that he used a means of interstate commerce to entice a girl who wasn't yet 18 to engage in an activity, also in 2012, that would constitute rape.
In his news release Wednesday, Thyer said: "I do not believe that justice will be done in these cases by continuing these particular federal prosecutions. While I am firmly convinced that the defendants' conduct was unlawful, I do not believe that a possible federal conviction and then 10-year mandatory minimum sentence that would accompany such a conviction would serve the ends of justice."
Metro on 09/18/2014