A 27-year-old Texas man who was arrested in March 2015, two days after persuading a 15-year-old Sheridan girl he met on the Internet to run away with him, was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in federal prison for transporting her across state lines for the purpose of sexual assault.
Jarvin Robinson is serving a six-year sentence at the Arkansas Department of Correction that he received in November 2015 as a result of the same situation, which also led to a state charge of Internet stalking of a child.
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. ordered Robinson to serve the federal sentence concurrently with what remains of his state sentence, but denied defense attorney Lisa Peters' request to reduce his mandatory minimum federal sentence of 10 years by three years to credit him for the time he has served in state prison.
In a reference to the increasing tendency of law enforcement officials to add federal charges on top of state charges for related conduct, Peters argued that Robinson and others should be able to get around the federal mandatory minimum when they have already served time in state prison for the same conduct.
After Marshall reviewed earlier decisions from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which oversees district courts in Arkansas, he said, "I am bound by the statute," despite a conflict between the mandatory minimum requirement and an "adjustment" allowed for time served when judges apply federal sentencing guidelines.
The guidelines suggested a penalty range of 120 to 121 months for Robinson, based on details of the crime and his past, but the mandatory minimum statute required no less than 10 years, or 120 months.
"This is an issue it appears the 8th Circuit needs to resolve," Peters said.
At the March 28 hearing, Robinson pleaded guilty to the transportation charge in exchange for two other charges -- attempted production of child pornography and the attempted transfer of obscene material to another minor -- being dismissed.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Bryant told the judge that the FBI was contacted March 15, 2015, after learning that a 15-year-old girl was missing from her home. Her brother reported that a man with dreadlocks and a "Rastafarian" hat showed up at the door at 5 a.m. asking to use the telephone, and then his sister disappeared.
Bryant said FBI agents found that over the previous five months, the girl had exchanged 1,942 messages through the KiK application on her iPod with another user who was identified as Robinson. A review of the conversations showed them trying to find a way to meet each other, discussing sex and having a relationship, and exchanging photographs, though Robinson, who was then 24, claimed to be 19 years old.
The conversation showed that on March 13, 2015, they discussed Robinson picking her up at her house, with her sounding reluctant at times and him encouraging her to "put your trust issues aside."
Bryant said that when sheriff's deputies in Texas found the girl at Robinson's house, she told them she had been forced to have sex with him. Robinson initially denied a sexual relationship but eventually admitted he had digitally penetrated the girl, she said.
Metro on 10/19/2018