A 17-year-old boy was sentenced to 15 years in prison Tuesday after admitting that he was responsible for four home break-ins in North Little Rock, most of them late at night, during which he sought out children to whom he could expose himself.
On two occasions, he found them and molested one of the girls he encountered, prosecutors said.
Montrel Verque Mayes of North Little Rock broke into houses seeking out children so he could show them his genitals for his sexual gratification, deputy prosecutor Robbie Jones told Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza on Tuesday.
Mayes pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault, two counts of sexual indecency with a child and four counts of residential burglary.
Under the terms of the plea agreement negotiated by his attorney, Tim Boozer, Mayes, who was 16 at the time of the break-ins, will have to register as a sex offender.
His prison term will be followed by a five-year suspended sentence. He was also ordered to stay away from the girls and their families.
Mayes was arrested on Sept. 22, four days after a girl in a West 12th Street home told police that she'd been accosted in the middle of the night in her bedroom by a stranger who asked how old she was. The invader fled when she told him she was 7, according to court files.
The first occurrence that police attributed to Mayes was a July 18, 2015, break-in at a Park Street residence where a 7-year-old boy said a stranger had entered his bedroom, exposed himself and demanded oral sex before fleeing.
Officers had a Sept. 1 encounter with Mayes near that same home while investigating a complaint about someone trying to open a window at the residence, court filings show.
The second break-in attributed to Mayes occurred Aug. 7, 2015, at a Nannette Street home where a girl reported that a man had entered her bedroom and demanded oral sex before fleeing.
The encounter that led to Mayes' arrest was a break-in at a Chandler Street home on Sept. 15 where he molested a 10-year-old girl, court filings show.
Her screams drove her middle-of-the-night assailant from her bedroom, but only after the attacker had rubbed himself against her buttocks and told her he'd leave if she performed oral sex on him, court filings show.
The assailant had been seen the night before at a neighbor's home, and the neighbor told the girl's mother that the assailant was Mayes, court filings show.
One of the victims picked Mayes out of a police photographic lineup on Sept. 21, giving detectives enough evidence to get an arrest warrant.
Metro on 08/10/2016
