A Pulaski County circuit judge fined a Little Rock man $3,500 Friday and sentenced him to six years on probation for threatening the life of a woman married to a police officer with whom he'd been feuding.
Arick Marquett Johnson, 28, did not testify at Friday's sentencing hearing before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright, but denied at his terroristic-threatening trial last month that he had ever seen or spoken with the woman before. He did admit that he had posted photos of the couple's home on his Facebook page with disparaging remarks about the officer, state Trooper Isaac "Ben" Holley, and that he had been driving a sport utility vehicle like the woman described on the date in question.
His lawyers argued at trial that Holley had his wife frame Johnson because of their ongoing feud.
Holley had worked off-duty at the apartment complex where Johnson lived, and Johnson believed that Holley had been ordered to run him off with tactics that included the threat that Holley could kill Johnson and get away with it because he's a police officer.
The officer's wife, Julia Holley, the prosecution's only sentencing witness, told the judge that her May 2013 encounter with Johnson has emotionally scarred her 8-year-old son, who saw what happened, and it has left her fearful at times to be home without her husband. Her son has a "severe fear of strangers," the mother of two testified, that can be set off just by someone looking at him. The boy can be afraid when he goes out to play, too.
"He asks me, 'Is the bad guy coming back?'" she said.
Her daughter was a toddler at the time, Holley said, but both children were frightened by the encounter.
In trial testimony, Holley said Johnson raced a yellow Hummer down the street toward Holley's children with music blaring before he pulled up next to her, cursing and threatening to kill her.
"They were scared because they could tell I was scared," she said.
She said it's still unnerving for her to know that photographs of her home, with the label that the residence was on "goblin watch," were on the Internet.
Deputy prosecutor Michael Wright said Johnson deserved prison time, telling the judge that Johnson's threat was not the typical threatening case in which a death threat is made in the spur of the moment. Johnson "tracked down" the Holleys, then went to their home while the trooper was at work and Julia Holley was alone with their children, Wright said. He urged the judge to consider Johnson's misdemeanor 2007 battery conviction in deciding whether Johnson posed a risk of future violence.
Defense attorney Lee Short argued for probation, disputing that Johnson had ever been a danger to the Holleys. He said Johnson is a good man who is raising an infant and a toddler while going to college full time, getting counseling and attending church regularly.
Short asked the judge to consider that Johnson could feel driven to act out in frustration over his dispute with Ben Holley. Neither police nor prosecutors gave as much credence to Johnson's series of complaints about Holley as they did to Holley complaining about Johnson, Short told the judge.
Johnson does not have a serious criminal record, Short told the judge in his plea for probation, and has already spent 75 days in jail in the case. Johnson is a good candidate for probation, the attorney said, noting the defendant has already spent about two years without problem on probation for a drug-possession charge.
The judge's sentence also includes the requirement that Johnson has no contact with the Holleys and performs 100 hours of community service within a year.
Metro on 03/14/2015