Pulaski County judge allows rape suspect's interview at trial; woman accused of sex with boy, 13

Tamesha Williams
Tamesha Williams

A Pulaski County circuit judge on Monday rejected defense arguments that a 31-year-old female sex offender didn't know what she was doing when she admitted to police she had sex with a 13-year-old boy.

T̶a̶m̶e̶k̶a̶ Tamesha* Kay Williams of North Little Rock is charged with rape, which carries a potential life sentence.

Williams told North Little Rock detective Julie Eckert that she had sex once with the boy after he had pursued and seduced her, according to the recording of the 27-minute police interview played in court for the judge.

On the recording, Williams said the boy looked young, but he wouldn't tell her how old he was. Williams said she would not have had sex with him if she'd known his age.

"I laid up with him one time," Williams, a mother of four, told Eckert on the recording. "He said, 'I'm old enough to show you what's going on.' He said, 'I know you're a grown woman and you want grown man things.'"

Judge Herb Wright found no wrongdoing by police in how Williams was questioned. His ruling will allow deputy prosecutor Michelle Quiller to use the interview at Williams' trial next month.

Quiller urged the judge to reject arguments that Williams didn't understand what she was doing when she submitted to the police interview.

Quiller pointed out that state doctors who examined Williams when the judge had questions about her mental state diagnosed her as malingering in June, meaning she was either faking or exaggerating symptoms of mental disease.

The defendant has been prosecuted before on similar grounds, Quiller said. She was able to give a detailed interview about what occurred between her and the 13-year-old boy, answer the detective's questions appropriately, and said she understood that having sex with a child is wrong, the prosecutor said.

Williams is on probation for a 2005 conviction for fourth-degree sexual assault involving a 14-year-old boy in April 2004, when she was 21.

Court filings show Williams told authorities that they had sex twice while dating, saying that the boy told her he was 18 and that he had pursued her for sex. Charges were filed after the boy's mother complained to police.

Regarding her latest accuser, Williams signed a waiver stating that she had agreed to speak to the detective without a lawyer, and the video recording shows Eckert reading Williams her rights during the June 24, 2014, interview.

But defense attorney Leo Monterrey, who said he will present an insanity defense at Williams' trial, disputed that Eckert had met the legal standard for making sure that Williams understood what she was doing when she agreed to answer questions.

Williams, 34, has mild mental retardation and schizophrenia, Monterrey said, pointing to the results of a February psychiatric exam.

Eckert said she suspected that Williams might have some disability because the defendant has made some poor choices in the past.

Williams once let a man move in with her who turned out to be a fugitive sex offender from Las Vegas, the detective said. Williams called police on him when she caught him passionately kissing her 3-year-old daughter, Eckert said. He was arrested and sent back to Nevada, the detective said.

Eckert said she knew that Williams has since had another relationship with a second sex offender.

But Eckert said she had no question that Williams knew what she was doing when she agreed to the interview.

On the recorded interview, Williams said she didn't know the boy's age until his 35-year-old mother called her to confront her about what had happened. She said the boy's mother had asked for $50 not to press charges.

Williams said she was also sexually involved at the time with the boy's 42-year-old father and told the detective the man knew she had sex with the boy and that he had encouraged his son to have sex with women, according to the police interview.

"'My son, he act like a little man. He's old enough to know what he want and what he don't want,'" she told the detective, recounting what the father had told her.

The boy pursued her and seduced her, Williams said, although at times she questioned his interest because when he was younger he'd made fun of her and called her fat.

She told the detective that she had warned the boy that promiscuity could expose him to illness.

She said she and the boy had exchanged text messages stating their love for each other, but Williams also said she had lied to him about being pregnant and had told him she would kill the baby if he continued to see other women.

The boy responded that he would kill himself if she killed their baby, and while undergoing counseling told his therapist about Williams, which led to police being called, the detective said on the recording.

Testifying on Monday, Williams told the judge that she has chronic memory problems, some of them made worse by her prescription medication, and doesn't remember the interview. She said she's had regular treatment for mental illness her entire life.

"I didn't understand what she was telling me at all," Williams said, testifying that her medications made her so drowsy she slept through parts of the hearing.

"I don't really understand what's going on today."

Her mother, Tammy Alexander, told the judge that Williams has been "absent-minded all of her life."

"What she just said is not a lie," Alexander testified, saying her daughter had the mentality of a 15-year-old. "She's like a big child. She was born that way."

After hearing the police interview in court, Alexander said she could tell her daughter didn't understand what was going on.

"I just heard a lot of pressuring [by the detective]," she testified. "I know for a fact she didn't understand any of it."

Metro on 08/23/2016

*CORRECTION: The first name of Tamesha Kay Williams was misspelled in this article about the convicted sex offender’s interview with North Little Rock police in connection with rape accusations that the 34-year-old woman had sex with a 13-year-old boy.

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