Accused of raping his then-5-year-old cousin, a 37-year-old Little Rock man who called himself the little girl's "protector" was acquitted Wednesday by a Pulaski County circuit judge who threw out the case against him.
Judge Barry Sims ended the two-day rape trial of Harold Dewayne Bell by agreeing with defense attorney David Hawkey, who argued that prosecutors had not presented enough evidence to submit the case to the jury. It's only the second time in his 15 years as a judge that Sims has dismissed a case in this manner during a jury trial.
Bell was accused of groping the girl when he was supposed to be baby-sitting her the evening of May 10 while her mother went on a date. The case rested entirely on the girl's account of how he had touched her. The girl had no injuries, and a DNA examination of her underwear did not yield enough male genetic material for testing.
Bell told jurors that he and the girl had been very close, saying he would regularly spoil her by letting her eat snacks her mother wouldn't let her have and allowing her to stay up past her bedtime. Her mother was both "overprotective" and overly permissive with her, he told jurors during his 35 minutes on the witness stand.
Bell said he loved the girl and that he was one of the few relatives who cared for her, telling jurors she has a "smart mouth" and behavioral problems.
"I have a soft spot for kids that don't have a father in their lives," he said. "Everyone knows [she] is smart ... but also she's bad."
Bell said the only reason he could think the girl would want to get him into trouble was because he made her go to bed earlier than she wanted on the night in question.
"I put her to bed early. I got stern with her. I usually don't get stern with children," he told jurors. "There's no way I would do anything like this."
Now a 6-year-old first-grader, the girl appeared to falter somewhat on the witness stand during her 20 minutes of testimony Tuesday.
Asked by deputy prosecutor Melissa Brown to point Bell out for the jury, the girl first pointed with her left hand to someone else, then, after a pause of a few seconds, switched to her right hand and pointed at Brown. Questioned about whether she knew someone named Harold Bell, the little girl said she did not.
The girl's mother testified that the girl told her about the alleged groping after school the next day. The 34-year-old woman said she had been chatting with the girl about what she and Bell had done together while the woman was on her date.
The woman said she asked whether anyone had touched her inappropriately -- something she routinely asks her daughter -- and the girl told her Bell had pulled down her pants and touched her.
The woman said she did not go to the police for another day, partially because she was so upset and also because her mother wanted her to wait until she could go with them. That delay also allowed footage from a security camera in the home to be automatically deleted, according to testimony.
Court records show that both Bell and his younger brother, Alvin Dewayne Bell Jr., were investigated over a complaint of child molestation in 2011, but neither man was charged.
Alvin Bell, 35, is also facing a rape charge, unrelated to the accusations against his brother. He is accused of raping a neighbor's daughter while living in the trailer park at 8186 Stanton Road in Little Rock in January 2017.
According to police reports, the girl said she was in the bathroom when Alvin Bell came in, pinned her down and raped and sodomized her. He's scheduled to stand trial in May.
Metro on 04/06/2018