FAYETTEVILLE — A 19-year-old man arrested on suspicion of entering a sleeping stranger’s dorm room at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville will avoid a trial for burglary after pleading guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor harassment.
Evan Thomas Ried, a former UA student from Bentonville, received a 12-month suspended sentence in Washington County Circuit Court and was ordered to stay away from the UA campus throughout that time period.
The state retains the right to refile the felony burglary charge for a year, but has no plans to do so, said Terra Stephenson, senior deputy prosecuting attorney.
Terms of the plea agreement require Ried to continue mental health treatment and complete 60 hours of community service.
He also must avoid contact with the student who, in a protection order affidavit, described him as touching her head, hair and then tickling her stomach under her shirt before fleeing her Northwest Quad dorm room. Ried attended UA from fall 2017 to fall 2018, a UA spokesman said.
UA police arrested Ried on Dec. 8 after a review of surveillance video from earlier that day, a police report states. Prosecutors charged Ried in February with residential burglary and third-degree assault, a Class C misdemeanor.
Ried can face up to a year in jail on the harassment charge if he violates terms of the agreement, Stephenson said, adding that it’s potentially a longer sentence than if Ried had pleaded guilty to third-degree assault.