Ex-officer gets 100 years for abuse

Jury returns guilty verdict after deliberating child-sex case for 15 minutes

— A former Alexander police officer was sentenced to 100 years in prison Wednesday for sexually abusing three children over the course of several years.

It took a jury just 15 minutes to convict Jeffrey Garcia, 36, of two counts of rape and one count of second-degree sexual assault after hearing the siblings - now ages 12, 13 and 14 - testify about sodomy, molestation and beatings.

“I don’t know if they can ever be fixed,” Saline County Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Rebecca Bush told the jury at the end of a two-day trial.

Circuit Judge Gary Arnold agreed that the sentences of 40 years, 40 years and 20 years should be served back to-back and ordered the former sergeant handcuffed and taken to jail. The defense offered no witnesses.

Garcia didn’t testify. Neither did the children’s mother, who’s awaiting trial on charges that she failed to report the abuse after the children repeatedly told her about it. Her name was withheld to protect the children’s identities.

During closing remarks, the two sisters and their brother sat in the front row of the courtroom with their foster mother and listened to Bush detail the abuse they endured.

When the jury foreman read three guilty verdicts, the boy smiled briefly. Garcia’s relatives cried.

Across the courtroom, the children’s mother appeared unmoved.

Later, she tearfully hugged and kissed Garcia under the close watch of bailiffs.

The defense argued there was little physical evidence to support the children’s claims and that their testimony was not believable.

“The children for whatever reason ... have not told the truth,” defense attorney Steven Smith said. “They have told lies ... a lot of lies.”

The only science prosecutors used to support the children’s claims was a semen stain on the boy’s comforter.

The state Crime Laboratory found that the DNA on the comforter matched Garcia’s. It was mingled with skin cells with DNA similar to the children’s.

That could be indicative of a sexual encounter, a Crime Lab analyst testified.

The boy told authorities in March that just days before they intervened, Garcia assaulted him in his room.

Doctors examined the children after a school counselor called the state’s child-abuse hot line. They found nothing to confirm or deny the claims.

That’s common in these types of cases because the body heals quickly, and evidence is washed away with the next shower and bowel movements, according to the testimony of an analyst and a physician who examined one of the children.

Garcia repeatedly and calmly denied sexually abusing the children during recorded interrogations with Benton police that were played for the jury.

When Benton detective Kory Bauer finally revealed to Garcia the exact nature of the allegations, Garcia put his hand over his face and uttered a profanity.

“I have not penetrated those kids,” he said.

Later, he grabbed his badge on his uniform, shook it, and told the detective he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his job.

Garcia resigned from the small Alexander Police Department while jailed in the case.

After continued prodding from the detective, Garcia offered a variety of reasons the children might have been inclined to make up such a story.

He said he was a strict disciplinarian, “whipping” and grounding them. The youngest one was mad because he wouldn’t take her to Wal-Mart to buy new shoes, she wanted to have more sleepovers at a friend’s house, and she wanted to live with another family or even in foster care, he said.

When the detective asked how the children got sexual ideas in their heads, Garcia said the older sister was angry about a foot massage he made her give him years ago. Then he described a time the younger girl peeked up his towel when he was playing video games. He also said she happened upon some of his computer pornography and that he tried to explain it to her.

None of that would have prompted three children who were “scared to death” of him to perpetuate a lie that caused them to be removed from their home, uprooted from their schools and put in foster care, prosecutor Bush argued.

She described the fear they must have felt walking into a courtroom full of strangers, sitting just feet away from their abuser and recounting the abuse in detail.

“It wasn’t easy for those kids to come in here and face that man,” Bush said.

Before sentencing, the oldest girl, now just days shy of her 15th birthday, took the stand and described the emotional toll the abuse and subsequent investigation has had on her and her siblings.

In braids and sneakers, she explained that it’s been particularly hard on her brother and that she feels betrayed by her mother.

“I love her so much, but I’m kind of angry that she defends him,” she said.

Their foster mother, Sandy Burbank, recalled a troubling conversation she had with the 12-year-old girl one night.

She saw the girl holding a mirror with a terrified look on her face. The girl said there were monsters in her closet.

When the foster mother told her there are no monsters, the girl replied that there are.

She told Burbank, “I’ve felt them bite me on the butt.”

Arkansas, Pages 11 on 12/03/2009

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