FORT SMITH -- A Sebastian County Quorum Court member said Tuesday that he did not threaten or attack his daughter over the July Fourth weekend, but he apologized for the embarrassment that his arrest may have caused.
In a nine-minute speech at the start of Tuesday's Quorum Court meeting, Justice of the Peace John Spradlin, 59, of Fort Smith disputed a news report about the incident, in which he was arrested.
"There is only one thing in it that is 100 percent accurate, and that is that a parent and a teenager had a high-volume, ugly discussion," he said.
He said he did not grab his 17-year-old daughter by the throat and throw her against a refrigerator, as his daughter told police, according to a report. He said the scratch on her arm came from abrasions from an inflatable tube on which she had been riding on July 4 during a family outing at Beaver Lake.
According to the police report, Spradlin's daughter, who was not named in the report, told Fort Smith police that Spradlin told her, "'I ought to kill you, you did this on purpose, I should beat your head in, and you're worthless.'"
Spradlin's daughter had told police that her father became angry at the way she completed some bank documents for him.
Spradlin said he told his daughter, "If I ever disrespected my mother like you disrespected me, my mother would have beaten me half to death," he said Tuesday.
That statement somehow got twisted into a threat to kill his daughter, he said.
Spradlin apologized to county elected officials, department heads, county employees, fellow Quorum Court members and the residents of Sebastian County for any embarrassment his arrest may have caused.
He also offered some advice for when to get arrested -- Monday night, he said, because the Sebastian County jail offers pancakes for breakfast on Tuesdays.
Spradlin was booked into the jail on charges of aggravated assault on a family member and first-degree terroristic threatening, both felonies. He was released after posting a $6,500 bond.
No formal charges have been filed against Spradlin.
After Spradlin's arrest, Prosecuting Attorney Dan Shue asked that a special prosecutor be appointed for Spradlin's case. As the county's attorney, Shue said, prosecuting a member of the Quorum Court would be a conflict of interest.
Arkansas Prosecutor Coordinator Bob McMahan said Wednesday that a special prosecutor will be named in the next few days. He said it will be up to the special prosecutor to decide what, if any, charges are to be filed and what additional investigation may have to be done before filing charges.
NW News on 07/23/2015