An Arkansas man admitted in court Tuesday to taking several minors on long-distance road trips to engage in sexual activity with them, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas said in a news release.
Clarence C. Garretson, 65, of Van Buren pleaded guilty in Fort Smith district court to five counts of interstate transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, the release from Kenneth Elser said.
The FBI started looking into Garretson in May when a female minor told officials that Garretson raped her when he took her on a multi-state road trip in 2014, the news release said.
Garretson was a truck driver for C&T Trucking in Van Buren and had requested and received a "rider waiver" from the company so the young girl could accompany him on the trip, the release said. She was 10 years old at the time, officials said.
Investigators then learned Garretson and his wife were approved to operate a foster home, which became an adoptive home, in 1998, and a foster child had previously reported she was sexually assaulted by Garretson to the Arkansas Department of Human Services, the release said.
Agents began contacting people who had been in foster care at the Garretson home and learned he had taken multiple young girls and a young boy on various road trips over the years and had sexually assaulted them, officials said.
One of the reported victims, who was 9 years old in 1999 when Garretson assaulted her, said he made her sleep nude or partially nude in the bed inside the truck, according to the release.
Garretson was charged in a superseding indictment by a federal grand jury Oct. 4, and he will be sentenced at a later date, officials said.
"Today’s guilty plea sends a clear-cut message to those who want to take advantage of our children," said FBI Special Agent Diane Upchurch. "We will find you, and you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Read Wednesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
