Former Fayetteville AD pleads guilty to sexual indecency with a child

Barry Dwayne Gebhart
Barry Dwayne Gebhart

The former athletic director for the Fayetteville School District pleaded guilty Thursday to sexual indecency with a child, but both the prosecutor and defense attorney were critical of the investigation that netted Barry Gebhart, 51.

Gebhart was placed on probation for 5 years and he will be required to register as a sex offender.

The plea was under an agreement Drew Miller, Gebhart's attorney, reached with Stuart Cearley, chief deputy prosecutor.

Circuit Judge Robin Green accepted the plea deal after Cearley explained problems with the case.

Cearley told the judge that the lead investigator failed to follow input from prosecutors before Gebhart's arrest.

Gebhart was arrested Oct. 22, 2013 at Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers after Benton County sheriff's office detectives arranged a meeting there. A detective pretending to be a 14-year-old girl communicated with Gebhart for several weeks, according to a probable cause affidavit.

A detective saw a posting Gebhart made on Whisper, a social networking application. The Cyber Crimes detective began to pose as a 14-year-old girl and interacted with Gebhart, who said he was a teacher, according to the court documents.

Gebhart made several sexual comments and sent a photograph of his penis and several facial photographs to the detective posing as the girl, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Gebhart denied meeting any other underage girls, but he said he texted a girl who was a senior at Fayetteville High School, according to court documents.

According to the probable cause affidavit, Gebhart told detectives he stopped the conversations when he discovered the girl attended the high school. Gebhart also admitted receiving nude photographs from girls, but he told detectives he immediately deleted the photographs and started asking for non-nude photographs, according to court documents.

Cearley told the judge that the chats between Gebhart and the investigator were stored in the investigator's personal cloud. The investigator, Glenn Latham, no longer works for the sheriff's office.

Miller said one of the photographs of the supposed 14-year-old girl was actually a photograph of a 23 to 26 year-old woman.

Green accepted the agreement, saying she understood that the prosecutor's hands were tied due to the handling of the case.

Miller said his client accepted responsibility for his actions. "It has been shown that the investigation against my client was flawed from the beginning," Miller said. "I believe that Barry felt his options were limited based on perceptions formed early on in this case — perceptions that turned out to be untrue."

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