Rett Hatcher & Company

This man filed for District 39 in Lonoke, Arkansas for State Rep….You may not recognize him, but he is Convicted Sex Offender Dwayne Dobbins….After two terms in the legislature as a Democrat he is back for his 3rd and final term…The Democrats have said that they will run a 3rd party candidate against him…All I can say is that this 3rd party candidate better be successful…Below is the AR Dem-Gazette Article…(A bit Graphic)…

State Rep. Roosevelt Dwayne Dobbins admitted Tuesday in court that he fondled a 17-yearold girl’s breasts last fall, and he agreed to resign his seat in the Legislature immediately.

Hours after his guilty plea, his attorney said Dobbins is maintaining his innocence regarding any sexual misconduct.

In his resignation letter to the governor, the 43-year-old Democrat from North Little Rock did not address his guilt or innocence.

Instead, he thanked Gov. Mike Huckabee for his leadership and said,” I have truly enjoyed serving District 39, and certainly thank those who have supported me.”

A spokesman for Huckabee said Tuesday that a special election will be called to fill Dobbins’ seat “as soon as reasonably possible.”

In exchange for Dobbins’ guilty plea, Pulaski County prosecutors agreed to reduce the second-degree sexual assault charge, a Class B felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, to the Class A misdemeanor charge of harassment to which Dobbins pleaded guilty.

Had he been convicted of the felony charge, Dobbins would have been required to register as a sex offender.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Willard Proctor Jr. sentenced Dobbins to one year’s probation, a $1,000 fine and counseling. The plea was contingent upon Dobbins’ immediate resignation from his legislative seat, which he has held since 2003. “Based on the nature of the contact, we [at the prosecutor’s office] didn’t feel it would be appropriate for him to remain a community leader,”Pulaski County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kim Wilson said after Dobbins’ sentencing.

During the brief court appearance by the defendant Tuesday morning in Little Rock, Wilson told Proctor that the victim went to Dobbins’ home on Sept. 19 to borrow his computer.

Dobbins, who is married, asked to see a recent surgical scar on the girl’s back and then touched her bare breasts. Wilson also said that Dobbins untied the girl’s pants and fondled her lower stomach and thighs. “Did you hear that?”Proctor asked Dobbins of Wilson’s description of the crime. “Yes, Your Honor,”Dobbins responded. “And did you, in fact, do these things?”Proctor continued. “Yes, Your Honor,”Dobbins said.

As is standard in most plea agreements, Dobbins and his attorney, Rita Bailey of Little Rock, also told Proctor that they believed that prosecutors could prove their case at trial “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

But Tuesday afternoon, Bailey said her client “maintains his innocence as to any type of sexual misconduct toward this alleged victim in this case. Mr. Dobbins did agree to a plea negotiation in an effort to resolve this matter.

“He is not a sex offender. “

Dobbins, Bailey said, pleaded guilty only to harassment, which is defined in Arkansas Code Annotated 5-71-208 as engaging in conduct or repeatedly committing acts that alarm or seriously annoy another person. Bailey said Dobbins was required to answer the judge’s questions in order to accept the plea agreement.

Asked about Dobbins’ claim of innocence, prosecutor Wilson said,”He agreed to the facts that were read [in court]. “

Wilson’s boss, 6 th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley added,”If he didn’t do it, then he shouldn’t have pleaded guilty and [his attorney] shouldn’t have let him. “

Jegley said that his office would move forward with a trial against Dobbins if Bailey’s remarks cause the plea negotiation to be overturned.

Bailey also said Jegley’s office was”overzealous”and went to extremes to prosecute Dobbins. She cited as an example the prosecutors’ request that he resign from the Legislature.

Jegley countered,” I’m proud of the work this office did and offer no apologies for protecting children.”

Dobbins, who showed up at the Capitol after his hearing, did not return repeated telephone messages and an e-mail asking for comment.

The victim in the case could not be reached for comment, but Jegley and Wilson said she was in agreement with the outcome of the case.

In a statement to North Little Rock police the day after the incident, the girl, who is now 18 years old, described in detail what happened that night at Dobbins’ home. She told police that she had been there many times. She visited that night to register via the Internet for a college entrance exam.

The girl told police she considered Dobbins a “mentor”and father figure.

According to the statement, she had been sitting at the computer for about five minutes when Dobbins mentioned her back surgery. “He was like, ‘Oh, my God, ’”as she explained her surgery. The girl went on to tell detective Phil Lowry that Dobbins compared her to a “bionic woman”and asked to see the scar, which she allowed him to do. “[T] hen he touch [ed] my shoulder and he lifted my shirt up this time all the way in the front”and touched her breasts, the girl said.

Dobbins, the girl said, told her that she wasn’t fat, something she had apparently complained about in the past. A few minutes later, the girl said that Dobbins resumed touching her. “He pulled my shirt up again and he was like, ‘ Um, what size are you?’ And I didn’t say anything. And then he was like, uh, ‘ These are nice. ’”

She pulled her shirt down and continued to fill out the online registration form. “All I was thinking was like, ‘ Oh, my God, I can’t believe this, ’”she told police.

Eventually, Dobbins gave her $10 and asked if she was going to tell anybody about what happened, the statement reads. Then, she said, he fondled her again. He untied her pants, according to the statement and told her,” There’s nothing wrong with you; you could be a model.”

She also claimed that Dobbins touched her vaginal area over her underwear. At some point, the two sat down in front of the computer again. The girl told police that she was shaking so hard that Dobbins had to help her complete the registration form.

Before she left, Dobbins took the $10 bill off the computer desk and exchanged it for a $20.

As she walked to the door, the girl said Dobbins reminded her to take No. 2 pencils and a calculator to the exam and then groped her chest a final time. He told her to go straight home.

When the girl left, she drove to a friend’s house. Police were called soon after she arrived.

Because the case was basically the girl’s word against Dobbins, police did not arrest him immediately. Prosecutors and an investigator said that such delays are common in domestic violence and sexual assault cases.

Instead, investigators put together a file, which was ultimately reviewed by three prosecutors and sent back for further investigation before an arrest warrant was issued. Police arrested Dobbins on March 24.

A judge allowed him to remain free on bond until his trial, which had been scheduled for Tuesday.

House Speaker Bill Stovall, who appointed Dobbins in January as the House chairman of the Joint Committee on Advanced Communications and Information Technology, said he did not know about the allegations against Dobbins until he read Saturday’s Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The last state legislator to resign after a court conviction was former Sen. Nick Wilson of Pocahontas, said Bill Goodman, the chief of staff for the Senate. A judge sentenced Wilson to 70 months in prison in 2000 after he pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges in schemes to defraud taxpayers.

Dobbins, who also sat on a House committee that considers matters regarding children, authored 18 bills in the 85 th General Assembly of 2005 that were passed into law.