Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims set bail at $600,000 on Monday for a Sherwood man accused of raping a former girlfriend's daughter after hearing testimony that North Little Rock police have charged him with raping a second girl, the daughter of another girlfriend.
Allegations against 32-year-old Ambrose Bernard Williams by a third girl, also a daughter of a girlfriend, are under investigation by police, with deputy prosecutor Meredith Moore saying she will call a fourth girl, yet another girlfriend's daughter, to testify against Williams at trial about how he molested her in Jacksonville when she was 5.
Testifying at Williams' bail hearing, detective Julie Eckert told the judge that a 12-year-old girl called 911 three days after Thanksgiving to report how Williams had just raped her.
Eckert said the girl was on the couch, wearing a "onesie" and watching TV when Williams came up to her and started "play-fighting" and wrestling with her. While they were playing, Williams poked holes in her jumpsuit and violated her with his hand, the detective said, describing her interview with the girl. When Williams left the room, the girl ran to the next door neighbor's house and called police, later demonstrating for investigators on an anatomically correct doll how the defendant had groped her, Eckert testified.
Williams was arrested about two weeks after a Dec. 1 interview in which he denied having any sexual contact with the child but also disclosed that he'd been similarly accused before on more than one occasion, the detective told the judge.
Eckert said she tracked down a girl who said Williams had sodomized her around Thanksgiving 2010, inflicting "the most ungodly pain" while demanding that she call him "master." Williams only stopped his attack when he heard the girl's uncle drive up, Eckert told the judge. She said that accuser's account resulted in Williams' second rape arrest.
Since Williams' arrest, police have heard from a former Little Rock woman who called from Georgia to accuse Williams of sodomizing and raping her 5-year-old daughter in 2015, Eckert said, telling the judge that investigation has only just begun.
Williams had been jailed without bail since his Dec. 15 arrest. Defense attorney Leslie Borgognoni told the judge that Williams is a lifelong central Arkansas resident whose parents live in Sherwood and would take him in and guarantee him transportation to court.
Also promising to provide Williams with a place to live was 32-year-old mother of four Francies Hollins, who said she's known Williams for about a year. A college student enrolled in online classes, Hollins told the judge she'd always be home with him and that she had no worries about him being around her children, who are ages 4 through 9.
Williams did not testify but court records show Williams has been on probation out of Benton County since June 2014 when he pleaded to aggravated assault, felony theft and misdemeanor assault. In Pulaski County, he has felony convictions for felon in possession of a firearm, domestic battering, theft and commercial burglary.
Metro on 03/15/2017