Ronald Lee Routh, who resigned last week as director of the Pulaski County Juvenile Detention Center, pleaded innocent this week in Pulaski County District Court to one felony count of second-degree sexual assault and three misdemeanor counts of harassment.
Routh, 66, appeared before Pulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber Monday morning where he pleaded innocent to the charges and was released on $150,000 bond, his attorney Bill Watt told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Routh had been on administrative leave since July when county officials acknowledged there was a criminal investigation into sexual misconduct at the facility. The investigation came to light when the state Department of Human Services and Arkansas counties that were paying Pulaski County to house their delinquent children began removing them from the center.
The charges resulted from a Pulaski County sheriff's office probe involving four boys last year, said Lt. Cody Burk, the sheriff's spokesman. He said deputies had been called in to investigate possible criminal conduct. The results of the sheriff's probe were turned over to prosecutors for review on Nov. 21. The sexual assault charge is a Class B felony that carries a 20-year maximum penalty.
According to a probable cause affidavit filed in district court, the sheriff's office received a referral report on July 21, 2022, in reference to allegations of sexual abuse at the facility naming Routh as the alleged offender. The affidavit said several current and former officers were interviewed during the investigation, as were several current and former juvenile inmates, several of whom provided statements claiming that Routh had made inappropriate comments of a sexual nature.
One of the juveniles interviewed, the affidavit said, accused Routh of touching him inappropriately during a pat-down after the youth was caught viewing pornography on a school computer. The affidavit said the youth told investigators that Routh was checking to see if the youth had had an "organism," and that he "described the touch as uncomfortable and a touch he did not want to happen."
During an interview with investigators on Aug. 8, 2022, the affidavit said, Routh admitted confronting the boy and said he had lifted the boy's shirt because, he said, it appeared to him that the juvenile "was unclothing himself at certain points," but he denied touching the boy inappropriately.
Records obtained through the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act show the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children division, which investigates child maltreatment, launched an investigation on June 23 based on incidents at the center that are alleged to have occurred June 18-June 19.
The accusations came at a time when the youth lockup was so crowded that a state watchdog labeled the facility as dangerous to children, some of whom had to sleep on mats, sometimes in rooms that had no toilet access.
Routh was County Judge Barry Hyde's choice to head the 48-bed center next door to the sheriff's office and jail.
On Tuesday, Hyde said that he became aware of the problems at the juvenile detention center sometime in the first or second week of July when he received a notice from the child protection unit of Arkansas State Police that a complaint had been filed.
"That day we removed Mr. Routh and put him on administrative leave," Hyde said. "Then we waited for, I thought, the state police to investigate but I found out about a month later it was being investigated by the sheriff's office, which is a little awkward because Mr. Routh was a former employee, a former director of training ... for the jail."
Hyde said that Rodney Shepherd, the deputy director, was put in charge of the detention center when Routh was placed on administrative leave.
Routh began his career in the late 1970s as a sheriff's deputy before taking the directorship at the detention center from 1977 through 1980 when he became the jail administrator for two years.
Routh left public service then, returning in 2015 at the invitation of then-Sheriff Doc Holladay to serve as administrative lieutenant for safety and security at the jail before Hyde offered him a job at the detention center as assistant director. He became interim director in April 2020, replacing Carma Gardner, before being appointed director.
Burk said such cases are routinely handed off to local agencies as a matter of course. He said Routh's former employment at the jail and later the juvenile detention center didn't pose a problem.
"We investigate and charge people in detention and patrol who commit crimes," Burk said. "If there's a shooting or something like that we'll investigate our own officers."
Hyde said sometime in late October or early November he learned that the investigative file had been turned over to the prosecuting attorney's office. He said he asked then-Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley to make sure the matter was taken up in his office to decide if charges would be filed.
"I said 'we've got this gentleman on paid administrative leave and that's all my policy really provides for me to do,'" Hyde said. "What our written policy says is if they are charged they are terminated."
Hyde said that Routh resigned his position last week "a day or two" before the charges were announced.
The judge said the problems at the detention center began to become apparent over the two-month period before being notified of the complaint when the facility's numbers suddenly tripled from an average daily population of about 15 to 18 people in the unit to 46.
"We have kind of a mutual aid agreement with the state and several other counties," he said, adding that there are only eight county facilities for juveniles still operating in the state. "So the state moved in 13 or 14 and we had another 15 or 18 from other counties. Although we have an agreement to help other counties and the state it was never our intention to become their primary."
Hyde said Routh should have reported the overcrowding situation to him as soon as it became a problem but said that didn't happen.
"I feel like he was trying to carry the load himself and I think it created a pretty chaotic situation," he said. "After being notified we terminated our agreement and told the counties and the state we had terminated it and they needed to come get their folks. Within 30 days we were back to 13 juvenile detainees."
Information for this news article was contributed by John Lynch and Will Langhorne of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.