A northeast Arkansas substitute teacher who in 2017 was acquitted of a rape accusation, but was arrested again in another jurisdiction within hours of the acquittal, will receive probation after pleading guilty to the new charge.
Latasha Kay Schoolfield, 34, was placed on three years of probation and was required to register as a sex offender after pleading guilty Monday to sexual indecency with a child, court documents said. Three charges of second-degree sexual assault and one charge of sexually grooming a child were dropped.
In February 2017, Craighead County Circuit Court jurors acquitted Latasha Schoolfield of rape after she was accused of having sex with a 13-year-old boy at a Jonesboro motel.
The teen told an Arkansas State Police investigator that Schoolfield had sex with him at a Motel 6 and "three to five" times in his bedroom at his house, according to a police report.
Schoolfield was arrested again within hours of the acquittal and charged in the Eastern District of Craighead County Circuit Court in Lake City as part of an active warrant on four counts of rape in the Caraway jurisdiction involving the same teenager. The charges were eventually reduced to second-degree sexual assault, court documents said.
Defense attorney Martin Lilly filed an interlocutory appeal in January 2018 with the Arkansas Court of Appeals to dismiss the charges against Schoolfield, saying the state had investigated the Caraway charges as part of the Jonesboro criminal investigation. Lilly argued that the trial in Caraway violated Schoolfield's right to be free of double jeopardy.
But the Arkansas Court of Appeals in December affirmed the decision to charge Schoolfield a second time.
State Desk on 07/31/2019