Arkansas man pleads guilty in rape of 12-year-old girl

HOT SPRINGS -- A Hot Springs man sentenced to life in prison earlier this year for the 2013 rape of a local woman pleaded guilty Monday in Garland County Circuit Court to an additional count of rape involving a 12-year-old girl last year and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

James Eugene Sharp, 33, who had remained in custody without bail since his arrest May 10, 2016, in the rape of the girl, also pleaded guilty Monday to a felony count of third-degree domestic battery in an assault on his wife and was sentenced to the maximum of six years.

Additional felony charges of terroristic threatening involving Sharp's wife and video voyeurism involving the girl were withdrawn as part of the plea agreement. SChief deputy prosecutor Joe Graham said the young victim had wanted to avoid having to testify at a trial and approved the plea offer made to Sharp, who had previously indicated he was willing to plead guilty.

Both sentences will run concurrently with each other and with his life sentence from his conviction June 21 after a one-day trial. A nine-man, three-woman jury took only seven minutes to convict Sharp in the Sept. 25, 2013, rape of a 46-year-old woman, and 23 minutes to recommend the maximum sentence after hearing testimony from the girl in the 2016 rape.

Public Defender Tim Beckham, who represented Sharp at his rape trial and at Monday's hearing, said Tuesday an appeal of his life sentence was mandatory and is pending.

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DNA from the girl's rape had led to Sharp's arrest in the 2013 home invasion rape that deputy prosecutor Kara Petro described as "every woman's worst nightmare" after his conviction. She said the victim was a stranger to Sharp and he had entered her apartment through a window in the middle of the night and threatened her with a weapon to commit the rape.

State Desk on 08/19/2017

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