Man pleads guilty in bestiality case

— A Searcy man was sentenced to one year of probation Monday after pleading guilty to misdemeanor counts of bestiality and harassment.

Richard Leo Sullivan, 58, must also spend 60 days in jail, which will be served on weekends, pay a $1,000 fine and perform 100 hours of community service as part of his plea deal, Pulaski County deputy prosecutor Colin Wall said. The case will be expunged if Sullivan, a first-time offender, completes his sentence without getting into more trouble. The law does not require him to register as a sex offender.

The case came before Circuit Judge Marion Humphrey on appeal from Jacksonville District Court. Sullivan was initially convicted of the charges in district court in November 2009. He was fined $895 and sentenced to one year in jail, the maximum incarceration he faced.

According to court files, Sullivan was arrested in May 2009 at the mobile home park on East Coffelt Road, where he was living at the time, about six weeks after a 10-year-old neighbor girl told Jacksonville police that she and some friends were walking down the road when a man driving by stopped and asked her to approach him. The girl said she walked up to his truck, according to a sworn statement by detective Melissa Burroughs, and the man told her he liked to perform oral sex, then turned and licked the genitals of a female dog in the cab of his pickup.

The three friends with the girl, ages 14, 15, and 16, told the officers that they’d heard the man make the remark then saw him lean over the front passenger seat where the dogwas sitting, Burroughs’ affidavit states. Police searched the park and found a truck matching the children’s description at a neighboring lot and questioned the owner, noting that there was a small white-andtan dog in Sullivan’s home.

“I advised Sullivan that I was working on a case, and before I could finish my sentence, Sullivan replied, ‘I didn’t do nothing to that girl,’” the detective wrote. “Sullivan advised he was talking about the girl who lived down the street. Sullivan denied this incident occurring.”

The whereabouts of the dog are unknown.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 8 on 07/21/2010

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