Arrest in N.D. nabs child-sex ring suspect from Arkansas

Cory Bryant Oxford
Cory Bryant Oxford

A Van Buren man was arrested Monday in North Dakota on a warrant charging him with two counts of rape and one count of transportation of a minor for prohibited sexual conduct, according to a news release from the U.S. Marshals Service.

Cory Bryant Oxford, 26, has been sought by the Franklin County sheriff's office since July 2016.

The Marshals Service's Western Arkansas Fugitive Task Force worked with Franklin County law enforcement to track Oxford to North Dakota, where he is believed to have fled after learning of the charges, the release said.

Oxford was arrested in Bismarck without incident, authorities said. He was being held Monday at the Burleigh County jail in Bismarck pending extradition to Franklin County, records show.

Oxford was one of five men charged in a suspected Franklin County child-sex ring that involved 61-year-old Michael Ray Roe of Mulberry, who recruited four younger men to have sex with him and transport boys to him for sex, according to arrest affidavits.

Roe was arrested in July 2016, pleaded guilty in May 2017 to sexual assault and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He also pleaded guilty to transporting minors for prohibited sexual conduct in a separate case, for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with the sentence to run consecutively with the sexual-assault sentence.

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State Desk on 03/13/2018

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