Arkansas man pleads guilty in beating of fellow inmate

Separate murder trial awaits

Ronnie Juan Hervey
Ronnie Juan Hervey

A day before he was scheduled to stand trial, a 37-year-old murder suspect accepted a 15-year no-parole sentence on Tuesday for inflicting crippling injuries on a fellow jail inmate.

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Ronnie Hervey pleaded guilty to first-degree battery for a May 2014 attack on 42-year-old Darrell Dean in the Pulaski County jail's outdoor recreation area, deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jill Kamps said.

Hervey told sheriff's deputies that he fought with Dean because he believed that Dean had been looking at his genitals in the shower.

Authorities initially feared that Dean would die from his injuries, and he was on life support at the hospital for some time. Authorities say he now requires a walker, sometimes suffers from seizures, and his short-term memory has been damaged, leaving him no memory of the attack.

Hervey won't be eligible for parole because he's been deemed a habitual offender.

Court records show he had 14 felonies and had been sentenced to prison five times before Tuesday's guilty plea, with convictions for battery offenses, robberies, drug dealing and firearm possession. He's scheduled to stand trial on the murder charge in an April 2014 case in December.

Hervey had also been linked to a murder case 20 years ago, but those charges were dropped. Just after turning 17 in January 1996, Hervey was one of two teenage capital murder suspects accused in a home-invasion robbery in which two victims were tied up by masked robbers. Little Rock police say 43-year-old Marcus Robinson was shot in the back and killed after the robbers took his Rolex watch. His girlfriend, Lisa Wiley, was pistol-whipped, police said.

Hervey's co-defendant, Charles Edward Hendricks Jr., then 18, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and theft in exchange for a 60-year prison sentence that will make him parole-eligible in February 2024. But prosecutors said Hendricks was not the killer.

The charges against Hervey in the 1996 case were dropped the day before he was scheduled to go on trial after the state's two key witnesses claimed that police had intimidated them into incriminating Hendricks and Hervey.

Hervey's guilty plea in the battery case on Tuesday, negotiated by defense attorney Tom Devine, comes a day after Circuit Judge Barry Sims ruled that deputies had not violated Hervey's rights when they recorded him talking about the Pulaski County jail attack during their investigation.

The judge likewise ruled that a jail deputy could testify about how she overheard him telling another inmate about how he'd "jumped on" another inmate and beat him down.

The deputy told the judge that Hervey said he'd left the man on the ground for a few minutes, then returned to attack him again.

Hervey had been in jail for about two weeks on a first-degree murder charge in the April 2014 case. Dean had been locked up fewer than 12 hours after assaulting another man.

Dean was waiting to be transported to Little Rock District Court for arraignment when Hervey attacked him. A deputy found him unconscious on the ground with his head in a pool of blood, a knot on his head and one eye swollen shut "like he had been [lying] there awhile," according to an arrest report.

There were several inmates smoking casually like nothing had taken place, and none of them reacted when the deputy found the injured man, the report said.

A check of other inmates for evidence of fighting showed that Hervey had swollen knuckles, and some of his fingers appeared jammed or broken. His hands appeared to have been recently washed, according to the report.

Two inmates said they saw the attack, court filings show. One told investigators that Hervey began beating Dean with his fists until the victim collapsed, at which point Hervey stomped the man's head against the concrete.

Hervey returned to the area and started kicking Dean in the head again, the inmate told investigators.

The second inmate said Hervey had approached Dean and called him a "punk-ass f****t" before punching Dean in the face, then stomping Dean's head when the man fell to the ground. The inmate said Hervey left the recreation area after telling the other inmates to keep their mouths shut and not to help Dean.

Hervey returned to the area and began kicking Dean in the head again, the second inmate told investigators. Hervey then washed his hands and shoes in a sink behind the deputy station, court files show.

Video surveillance confirmed the witness accounts, court files show.

Metro on 10/19/2016

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