FORT SMITH -- A New Jersey man was sentenced in U.S. District Court on Tuesday to 10 years in prison on charges that he took a then-14-year-old girl across state lines for criminal sexual activity, according to court records.
Robert Joseph Butler, 27, of Clayton, N.J., pleaded guilty on Aug. 29 to charges of sexual assault in violation of Texas law and second-degree assault in violation of Arkansas law as part of a plea agreement with the government. U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III sentenced Butler to 10 years in prison on each count and ordered the sentences to run concurrently.
According to court records, Butler and the 14-year-old girl, who was from Albuquerque, N.M., were arrested outside a Fort Smith store on April 17 by federal, state and local law enforcement officials. An Amber Alert had been issued for the girl.
Officials located the two by using an Internet Protocol address associated with a Pinger account, an application that allows users to have free text messaging and make free cellphone calls, according to the government.
The two had been camping in the Kibler Bottoms east of Van Buren in Crawford County, living out of a car for about two weeks before their arrest. During that time, the records showed, Butler had sexual contact with the girl. He also spray-painted the blue car he borrowed from a friend white and dyed his hair to avoid detection.
According to court records, Butler and the girl had been communicating through social media and emails in 2013. In late 2013, Butler drove to Albuquerque and stayed with the girl for about a week, hiding in her bedroom closet before the girl's mother discovered him and called the police.
Butler went back to New Jersey but returned to Albuquerque at the end of March and met the girl at a coffee shop. When she received a text from her father asking for her whereabouts, the two fled in the friend's car.
They drove to Texas and then to Oklahoma before arriving in Arkansas on April 3. According to court records, Butler had sexual contact with the girl in all three states.
Metro on 01/21/2015