A 20-year-old mentally ill Mabelvale man has been sentenced to 18 years in prison for molesting an 8-year-old girl and groping a 26-year-old woman in separate attacks about six months apart.
According to sentencing papers filed on Monday, Kalon Darnell Henry pleaded guilty on Feb 28 to two counts of second-degree sexual assault before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims in exchange for the 18-year sentence recommendation by deputy prosecutor Katie Hinojosa. The plea agreement was negotiated by Henry's attorney, Rebecca Ferguson.
Court files show that Henry, who turns 21 next month, was first arrested on sex charges when he was apprehended by a good Samaritan on Aug. 31, 2017, at 5420 W. 35th St. after he attacked the woman about 7:23 p.m.
The woman told police she was walking home on Mabelvale Pike from her job at the Paper Moon club on that street when a man, his face half-masked with a bandanna, came up from behind her.
She told Little Rock detective Paige Cline that the attacker grabbed her from behind in a "bear hug," then tried to wrestle her off the street while pulling her pants down. The assailant was rubbing his body on her and grabbing her breasts, the woman told the detective, when a couple driving by came to her rescue.
Priscella Eatmon, 52, and Ladell Johnson, 44, intervened, they told police, when they saw a bandanna-wearing man grab a woman on the street and try to pull down her pants. Johnson, armed with a golf club, chased down the assailant, catching the man and holding him for police outside Fairview Baptist Church at 5420 W. 35th St.
Police records show it was Henry's first felony arrest but that police had encountered him three times in the previous month on misdemeanor complaints. Two days earlier, he had been taken into custody on an obstructing governmental operations charge by a home at 3124 W. 32nd St. near the Walker Street intersection. He was cited for trespassing at the Kum & Go at 7620 Baseline Road on July 21, 2017, and July 29, 2017.
Henry had been under investigation for about six months at the time, after a Feb. 17, 2017, report by the 8-year-old who Henry had been babysitting during a visit at her grandmother's home. The woman told police that she had Henry watch the child while she had gone to get food. Henry was the boyfriend of another of the woman's daughters.
The girl told her mother and authorities that "Kalon" had removed her clothing and sexually assaulted her, court filings show. She said she had been asleep on the couch but woke up to find her pants and underwear removed with Henry on top of her. She said he quit when she yelled at him to stop and lashed out at him. Police arrested him in that case on Jan. 24, the day after obtaining a warrant.
Court records show state doctors diagnosed Henry with schizophrenia and found him to have borderline intellectual functioning but determined that he knew the difference between right and wrong and was able to control himself at the time of the assaults, meeting the legal standard to stand trial.
Metro on 03/07/2019