The two-day trial of a fired Little Rock police officer, charged with misdemeanor domestic battery over accusations that he injured his ex-girlfriend during a jealous fit, ended Wednesday with a deadlocked jury unable to reach the required unanimous verdict.
Jack Soliman, 40, also known as Ahmed Hassan Soliman-Motawie, claimed the woman was framing him. He faces up to a year in jail. Prosecutors said they would retry him.
Jurors saw in a video some of the September 2018 encounter between Soliman and Kristen Anne Giggleman at her residence at the Forrest Place apartments, 1400 N. University Ave.
Soliman snatched Giggleman's phone from her, then barricaded himself in her bathroom while he looked through the device trying to figure out who had called her. He recorded the incident on his phone, capturing the two yelling profanities at each other, with Giggleman banging on the bathroom door, demanding that he return her phone. Prosecutors played the video for jurors.
A neighbor's report about terrifying screams coming from Giggleman's apartment sent police to the residence. Soliman was arrested about two weeks later when Giggleman told police that she was limping and suffering from painful bruises that formed after the incident.
Soliman, a six-year department veteran, was subsequently fired.
Defense attorney Bill James admitted the footage, and police testimony about his client's rude and standoffish behavior with responding officers made Soliman look bad.
In his closing argument, James said he would not want his daughter to date someone who acted like Soliman. But prosecutors had no real proof that Soliman put his hands on the 31-year-old woman, he said. Giggleman initially told police that she'd fallen when Soliman took her phone away, denied any injuries and described him as a "good guy" with an anger problem.
Her subsequent claim that Soliman threw her to the floor twice is unbelievable and unsupported by reliable evidence, the attorney said. All jurors have to go on is her word and the Little Rock science teacher is "not a truthful person," whose story changed every time she told it.
"He's not charged with being a bad boyfriend. He's not charged with being an ass," James told jurors. "She's got at least a flexible view of when she can tell the truth."
James said Giggleman was likely lying about Soliman because she was mad about crude and demeaning text messages he had sent to a potential suitor while he had her phone in the bathroom.
Soliman did not testify, but James called trauma surgeon Dr. Jeff Durgin of Midland, Texas, who spoke as an expert witness on bruising.
Durgin said he could tell the age of bruises "within a reasonable degree of medical certainty" and that the marks on Giggleman's left leg and elbow, as depicted in police photographs, did not appear to have been inflicted in the manner Giggleman claimed or within the time frame she reported. He said the bruises could have been self-inflicted.
Deputy prosecutors Melissa Brown and Jennings Morgan scoffed at the accusations that Giggleman was lying.
If she'd wanted to frame Soliman, she would have immediately told police he'd hurt her instead of waiting until she started to suffer from what he'd done to her. She also went to her doctor and got prescription medication for the bruising and the limp Soliman inflicted, they said.
Soliman is the one who arrived unwanted and uninvited at Giggleman's home, intimidated her into letting him inside, the prosecutors said. He wanted to get back together but flew into a rage when she got a phone call, which led to the bathroom standoff.
Prosecutors also pointed to the way a raging Soliman deliberately cut himself on the arm with a knife while police were at the door.
"He's the one who escalates things," Brown told jurors. "She's telling the truth. She's being honest."
The jury, equally divided between men and women, deliberated about two hours before reporting to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson that they were at an impasse. Johnson declared a mistrial.
Jurors said they were bitterly divided and would never agree. "In our trenches" is how the jury forewoman described their differences to the judge. She did not say whether jurors were favoring a verdict.
Misdemeanor cases are generally heard in district court. Soliman was on trial in circuit court because he was appealing the guilty verdict he received from Sherwood District Judge Milas "Butch" Hale in March. Court proceedings in misdemeanor appeals start from scratch in circuit court.
Hale found Soliman guilty after a nonjury trial and imposed one year of probation, a $300 fine, required him to attend domestic-abuse classes and ordered him to stay away from the woman while he's on probation. He also barred Soliman from having a gun or ammunition.
A charge of violating an order of protection from Soliman's second arrest, about a month after his first, is still unresolved.
Giggleman filed a complaint with police after Soliman showed up on her birthday at her aunt's Myrtle Lane home and dropped off a portrait he had painted of her as a birthday present. Three days earlier, he had been court-ordered not to have contact with her.
Soliman's attorney is arguing that charge should be dismissed. A ruling from the judge is pending.
Metro on 11/22/2019