A Van Buren man arrested in North Dakota last week on charges of rape and transporting minors for sex involving a child-sex ring in Mulberry is back in Arkansas.
Cory Oxford, 26, was booked into the Franklin County jail in Ozark at 9:15 p.m. Sunday, according to county jail records. He was charged in a warrant in 2016 with two counts of rape and one count of transporting a minor for prohibited sexual conduct.
Oxford was not arrested until March 13 when the U.S. Marshals Service picked him up in Bismarck, N.D., where he was believed to have fled after learning of the charges in Arkansas. He was held in the Burleigh County jail in Bismarck until he was returned to Franklin County.
Oxford had no court appearance scheduled in Franklin County Circuit Court as of Monday, according to the circuit clerk's office.
Oxford was one of five men charged in a suspected Franklin County child-sex ring run by Michael Ray Roe, 61, of Mulberry, who recruited four younger men to have sex with him and to transport boys to him for sex, according to court records.
Roe was arrested in July 2016 on several charges. He pleaded guilty in May in one case to two counts of transporting minors for prohibited sexual conduct and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In another case, he pleaded guilty to one count of transporting minors for prohibited sexual conduct and one count of first-degree sexual assault and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. The two sentences were ordered to run consecutively.
Weston Bailey, 22, pleaded guilty in June to one count of sexual indecency with a child and was sentenced to four years' probation. Court records showed that a petition to revoke his probation was filed Friday in circuit court on charges of residential burglary, breaking and entering, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, terroristic threatening and first-degree criminal mischief.
Dillion Harrison, 21, of Mulberry pleaded guilty in August to hindering apprehension, a felony, and was sentenced to five years' probation. He initially was charged with sexual indecency with a child in addition to the hindering apprehension charge.
John Davis, 22, of Mulberry was charged with transporting a minor for prohibited sexual conduct and with sexual indecency with a child. The charges were dismissed Oct. 3, according to circuit court records.
State Desk on 03/20/2018