FORT SMITH -- A Sebastian County Quorum Court member who was arrested last month in the assault of his daughter will not be charged, a special prosecutor announced Tuesday.
The special prosecutor, Crawford County Prosecuting Attorney Marc McCune, said in a news release that he decided not to file criminal charges against 59-year-old John Spradlin at the request of the victim, Spradlin's 17-year-old daughter, who has not been named.
Spradlin was arrested July 7 on felony charges of aggravated assault on a family member and first-degree terroristic threatening. He was freed that day after posting a $6,500 bond.
In the release, McCune wrote that Spradlin's daughter believes the statements she made to police were true but that not pressing charges against her father is in her best interest.
Since Spradlin's arrest, the release said, the teen has not lived with her father nor had any contact with him.
"She believes that counseling and time can heal and resolve many of the issues that have developed that subjected her to this situation," the release said.
Spradlin was not reached for comment Tuesday. A recording said the phone number for Spradlin that's listed on the county's Quorum Court website is not a working number.
Spradlin's daughter went to the police station late July 6 to report that her father threatened and attacked her. Spradlin denied the allegations and gave his side of the story during a July 21 special Quorum Court meeting.
According to a police report, Spradlin's daughter said she had completed a bank document her father asked her to write, but he became angry while reviewing it and started yelling at her. She told officers that Spradlin told her he ought to kill her, that he should beat her head in and that she was worthless.
The report said he then shoved her against a refrigerator and began choking her. He let go when she scratched him on the face, and she was able to leave the house and seek help, the report said.
At the July 21 meeting, Spradlin said he and his daughter had a loud argument but that he did not grab her throat or shove her against a refrigerator. Scratches on her arm came not from an attack but from abrasions from an inflatable tube on which she had been riding July 4 during a family outing at Beaver Lake, he said.
NW News on 08/26/2015