Pulaski County Circuit Judge Karen Whatley sentenced a Ward man to 24 years in prison for sexually abusing a transgender boy, telling the 55-year-old defendant on Thursday that she feared he would commit more sex crimes if he were not behind bars.
Whatley further said the way Ricky Lynn Brown ingratiated himself into the Little Rock boy's family showed he had been sexually grooming the victim before preying on him before he transitioned. Brown's actions showed a "prolonged pattern of concealment," and a separate case involving an assault on a Sherwood woman demonstrated that Brown engaged in a "continuous course of conduct," the judge said.
Brown did not speak during the 51-minute sentencing hearing. Whatley had found Brown guilty as charged with second-degree sexual assault and sexual indecency with a child at a non-jury trial last month. The charges together carry a 26-year maximum. Brown will have to serve at least six years before he can apply for parole.
Deputy prosecutor Molly Hines did not recommend a specific sentence, asking only that the judge impose a punishment "substantially" higher than the eight-year maximum suggested by sentencing guidelines.
Brown is a "broken man," his attorney Floyd Healy told the judge, asking for a sentence of probation and time served, which would allow immediate release. He said that the year Brown had spent in jail awaiting trial is the equivalent of a six-year prison term when considering parole eligibility. Brown is an educated man, a licensed electrician, who knows that if he violated probation he would be sent to prison, Healy told the judge.
"He's learned the consequences of his actions," Healy said.
But the judge said testimony that Brown had sexually assaulted the Sherwood woman in Lonoke County in June 2021 -- two days after the boy told his mother what Brown had been doing to him, and they went to police -- convinced her Brown is at risk for reoffending.
Brown denies molesting the boy but pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault, reduced from rape, involving the woman in November 2021 in exchange for 30 days in jail and six years on probation, with the requirement that he register as a sex offender. Prosecutors said Brown abused the boy from June 2017 through May 2021.
The judge said Brown's relationship with the boy and his family, which began when the victim was 9, gave the appearance that Brown had been deliberately getting close to the family to get to the child. The judge cited trial testimony that Brown would buy presents and do favors for the boy in exchange for "super hugs," which the boy said involved groping and fondling him.
"You took my vulnerability and you took advantage of it," the 15-year-old boy told Brown. "You deserve to be put away."
The boy said he's been diagnosed with major depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, stating that he's been dealing with the consequences of Brown's abuse for the past three years with ongoing weekly therapy sessions. The teen recalled many sleepless nights when he blamed himself for what Brown was doing to him.
"This really hurt me," the 15-year-old boy told the judge Thursday. "It's been really rough trusting others and trying to connect with others."
"You're evil and you need to be stopped," the boy's mother told Brown. "You disgust me."
The mother described an incident shortly after meeting Brown in which she asked him to take off his glasses so his eyes would show up better in a photograph. Brown told her she might not like what she saw in his eyes because "it might be the devil," the woman said.
"I thought you were joking," she said. "I know now you are not."
Brown can no longer hide what he is, she told him.
"Justice saw you for what you are and found you guilty," the woman said.
She said the only good to come from this is that her son "has been validated. He's seen justice work when he walks out of this courtroom."
Also testifying was Brown's Lonoke County victim. The 28-year-old woman said she'd been helping tend to Brown's 5-year-old grandchild while the boy was sick. She said she'd gotten up in the middle of the night to check on the boy and had fallen asleep next to him. The woman said she was awakened by Brown performing oral sex on her, despite the sleeping child close by.
The June 2021 assault was a "nightmare" that afflicted her with night terrors and panic attacks, the woman said, calling Brown a "monster."
"You don't deserve to be free," she told him. "You deserve to be in a case and rot, Ricky Brown!"
Brown's oldest sister, Debbie Sanders, asked the judge to consider how her brother had been brought up in a household of drunkenness and domestic abuse by their father, recalling how, as a second-grader, she had to drive their father home because he was so intoxicated.
Brown is a good man and she considers him a good father, with five children, Sanders said. As a mother and grandmother, Sanders said she would have no concerns about leaving him unattended with her children or grandchildren, even after his convictions.