BENTON — Three children took the stand Tuesday and told a jury that a then-Alexander police officer sexually abused them at their home and that their mother knew about it.
A sister and brother, ages 12 and 13, described sodomization by Jeffrey Garcia over the course of several years. Their oldest sister, now 14, described being molested once.
Garcia, 36, is charged with two counts of rape and one count of second-degree sexual assault. He has denied ever having sexual contact with the children.
While in jail on the charges, Garcia resigned his job as a sergeant with the small Alexander Police Department.
During the first day of the trial, defense attorney Steven Smith of Little Rock questioned the children’s truthfulness and the consistency of their accounts.
For instance, he asked the boy why he didn’t say anything during a recorded interview with a child-abuse detective about Garcia forcing him to perform oral sex but later made that claim to other authorities.
The boy often paused for long periods during questioning. His responses were sometimes barely audible, and other times he simply gave a nod yes or shook his head no.
Saline County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Bush asked the boy if he has remembered “new things” over time, to which he promptly replied “Yes, ma’am.”
During the recorded interview, which was played for the jury, the boy described the abuse as taking place “a lot” and as recently as just two days before that interview.
Police began investigating Garcia in March after a Benton elementary school counselor reported the suspected abuse on a state hot line.
That counselor, Robin Jackson Hudson, testified Tuesday that the 12-year-old girl arrived in her office one day with her best friend, put her head down on a table and sobbed.
Then, she said, the girl climbed into her lap and - shaking and crying - told her that Garcia put “his thingy in my butt.”
“Time kind of just stood still at that point,” Jackson Hudson told the jury.
Then the girl told her that her mother knew about what happened and didn’t love her, the counselor testified.
“I felt physically sick to my stomach,” Jackson Hudson told the jury. She said she had to go to the restroom and regain her composure before making the state-mandated call to the child-abuse hot line.
The children have been in foster care since Garcia’s arrest. Their mother also faces charges stemming from the children’s claims that they reported the abuse to her. They said they even wrote her a letter at one point.
She is awaiting trial on three counts of permitting child abuse. Her name was withheld to protect the children’s identities.
She confronted Garcia at some point about the children’s claims, the children testified. After that, he told the children they would be like “ghosts to him,” and the abuse stopped for a while, the 12-year-old girl testified.
Smith said he didn’t know yet whether Garcia would testify in the trial.
The trial is expected to conclude today.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 12/02/2009