A Pulaski County jury on Wednesday decided that what a Little Rock pastor called an honest mistake was actually the molestation of a 12-year-old girl, a friend of the man’s daughters.

Convicted by the jury of second-degree sexual assault, Eric Lynn Castrellon was sentenced to five years of probation and two months of jail by Circuit Judge Herb Wright.

Castrellon was accused of groping the girl, now 16, while she was at a sleepover at his home in December 2009. She also occasionally attended Castrellon’s nondenominational Rock City Church, which has had several addresses in Pulaski andSaline counties.

Castrellon, a minister for more than 20 years, admitted he touched the girl as she slept in the bed of one of his daughters at their Dreher Road home.

But he didn’t know the girl was spending the night - he’d just gotten home from a lengthy church program - or that she was sleeping in his youngest daughter’s bed, Castrellon testified. He was in a “completely dark” room, thinking he was patting down his 5-year-old daughter, a chronic bed-wetter, to see if she had soiled the sheets, he explained.

“I felt around to see if I could feel wetness,” he testified. “This is all split-secondstuff. It was an awkward moment.”

He recoiled when the girl moved and he realized the child he was touching was not his daughter, but someone much larger, he said. The girl didn’t seem to wake up, Castrellon said, so he didn’t tell anyone.

The girl continued to socialize with his daughters, he said, so he didn’t know she was upset by what had happened - until six months or so later, after the girl told a friend at summer camp. That disclosure led to authorities being notified and police questioning him. He was arrested in February 2011.

Re-enacting his version of events before the jury for deputy prosecutor Scott Duncan, Castrellon stood up and clapped his hands to his hips. He said he moved the sheets to get to the sleeping figure he thought was his daughter.

“Around the midsection ... I touched her. I don’t know where I touched her,” he said. “I saw the tip of the waistband of the [girl’s] shorts. I know that was where I wanted to go.”

Castrellon also complained that prosecutors attributed sinister intentions to what he said was an innocent touch of the girl’s face that was caught on video months later. Prosecutors said the move was a caress.

The three-minute recording shows the girl and two of Castrellon’s daughters sitting next to him on a couch at the girl’s grandmother’s home. The girls are making faces at the camera, singing about Pop-Tarts, laughing and showing off some eye makeup.

Castrellon brushes hair from the girl’s left temple with his right hand then runs his fingers back through her hair, pulling it up over her head. She says thank you then pulls her hair back into place.

Castrellon said the touch was playful and that he only moved the girl’s hair becauseit was partially obscuring the face of one of his daughters.

The girl’s father was sitting across from them and he didn’t notice anything untoward, according to testimony.

Supporting Castrellon in court were longtime friends and church members who attested to his honest character - Stephanie Knapp, Sara Hoofman and Michelle Cooley, all of whom indicated they trusted him with their own children.

The girl told jurors she was asleep with one of Castrellon’s daughters when she was awakened by someone rubbing her on top of her shorts. She “adjusted” herself because she thought it was the other girl shifting in her sleep, but the touching continued.

“I had felt rubbing, and I thought it was [the daughter] rolling over,” she said in a quavering voice. “I opened my eyes and he was there.”

The teen disputed Castrellon’s claim that he didn’t know she was at the home, saying he’d been at the house that evening. She also contradicted Castrellon’s testimony that the sleepover was on a Saturday night. The girl said it was Friday.

Questioned by defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig, the girl admitted she had not always been certain about when the touching had occurred.

“I focused on what happened, not when it happened,” the girl said. “I’m 300 percent sure. There’s no doubt in my mind this was Friday.”

With Castrellon facing up to 20 years in prison, Rosenzweig called the accusation against his client a “classic case of miscommunication and misunderstanding” and asked jurors to acquit him.

But deputy prosecutor Elaine Lee told jurors that Castrellon’s version of events matched the girl’s account in one critical detail that proved he had molested her: Both said she had moved after first being touched, but that Castrellon had continued to touch her even after she shifted positions.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 08/24/2012