12-year-old girl's rapist gets 25 years; Arkansas man urged her to kill self, prosecutors say

Robert Brown
Robert Brown

A 43-year-old North Little Rock man who prosecutors say urged the girl who had accused him of sexual assault to kill herself has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping her.

Robert Glenn Brown of North Little Rock must serve at least 70 percent of the sentence, which would make him 60 years old before he can apply for parole. Court records show a Pulaski County jury found him guilty as charged after a one-day trial before Circuit Judge Barry Sims on Tuesday.

A week earlier, Sims had cleared the way for prosecutors to introduce at trial social-media messages believed to have been sent to the girl by Brown, who denied raping the girl and sending the messages. He was not criminally charged over the messages.

Brown was charged with raping the girl, now 14, in Little Rock between September 2014 and October 2014, when she was 12 years old. But the girl never told anyone, police said.

Her mother testified Tuesday that she never suspected Brown had abused her daughter. She said she saw nothing amiss between them at the time. Her daughter did get very upset when Brown suddenly left town without warning, but she eventually appeared to get over it, the 35-year-old woman said.

She said she discovered what had happened last October when she was checking her daughter's social media accounts and discovered the girl had been exchanging messages over the photo-sharing Instagram service with a person she believed to be Brown.

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The messages showed that the author knew the girl had been sexually assaulted. The writer appeared to grow angry when, after telling the girl he loved her, she responded that she did not want to ever hear from him again.

Metro on 09/22/2017

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