Man faces charge in baby boy’s death
JONESBORO - A Jonesboro man faces a charge of manslaughter in the November death of his girlfriend’s 1-yearold son, Jonesboro Police Department spokesman Doug Formon said.
Carlos Dwayne Rubin, 38, was arrested Thursday after a state Crime Laboratory autopsy ruled that the Nov.
1 death of Rashawn Hughes was considered a homicide.
An arrest affidavit filed in Craighead County District Court on Thursday said an unnamed juvenile witness told police he saw Rubin shove the baby’s head into a pillow while yelling at him to go to sleep.
The following morning, the baby was taken to NEA Baptist Memorial Hospital in Jonesboro and then transferred to Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, where he died.
An autopsy revealed the baby suffered brain swelling and retinal hemorrhaging.
Charles Kokes, the Crime Lab’s chief medical examiner, ruled the cause of death as a homicide.
Craighead County District Judge Keith Blackman set Rubin’s bail at $5,000.
Rubin was released from the Craighead County jail in Jonesboro on Thursday evening, a jail employee said.
A phone listing for Rubin was not found.
- ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Woman arrested
after bank holdup
CHEROKEE VILLAGE - A woman wearing a mask and hooded jacket robbed the First National Bank Co.
branch in Cherokee Village on Thursday morning, Sharp County Sheriff Mark Counts said.
Authorities said surveillance video recorded the woman as she entered the bank on Santee Drive in the retirement community about 9:15 a.m. She was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a black ski mask and took an undisclosed amount of cash, Counts said. No further description of the woman was given.
A witness at the bank reported seeing the woman drive away in a black Ford Expedition.
Police later questioned a woman at the Hardy Police Department, but an arrest had not been made Thursday evening, Counts said.
Agents with the Arkansas State Police and FBI are assisting with the case, the sheriff said.
- ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTEFraternity member charged in beating
CONWAY - A University of Central Arkansas student was charged with second-degree battery, a felony, and four counts of misdemeanor hazing as the result of what UCA police described as an ordeal that involved the beatings of four Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity pledges.
Isaiah Christopher Ozuna, 22, of Conway was charged in Faulkner County Circuit Court in connection with the events, which began about midnight Tuesday and continued Wednesday at a house on Krystal Kreek Drive in Conway, according to a police affidavit.
Ozuna was known as the “dean of pledges,” according to the affidavit. Ozuna has denied any involvement in the purported hazing, according to the affidavit.
One of the fraternity’s pledges suffered visible and painful injuries, police said. That pledge told police that Ozuna paddled him four times in a row, then made him kneel on a pile of uncooked rice while raw eggs were thrown at him.
“He said he was paddled a few more times, and [then] made to get in to the ‘plank position,’ and was slapped in the face twice,” according to the affidavit.
The student had welts and discoloration on his buttocks, which were “red and purple,” according to the report.
UCA police spokesman Arch Jones said a police investigation is underway.
UCA spokesman Fredricka Sharkey confirmed that Ozuna is a student.
She said the Iota Gamma chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi “has been placed on cease and desist,” meaning all of the chapter’s activities have been suspended until further notice.
- ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 10 on 03/08/2014