A former Hot Springs man who had moved to Texas pleaded no contest Monday to 10 felony counts involving child pornography and waived his right to a jury trial, with a bench sentencing to be set in Garland County Circuit Court.
Larry Douglas Matheny Jr., 34, who lists a Forney, Texas, address, was set to stand trial Tuesday, but opted to plead no contest to 10 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing of matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The 10 counts all involved a female from Hot Springs when she was 12 to 13 years old. An additional 18 counts of the same charge were withdrawn by prosecutors as part of the plea agreement. A plea of no contest has the same effect as a guilty plea with the defendant convicted and accepting punishment without admitting guilt.
Matheny was arrested on Dec. 19, 2016, in Texas and extradited to Hot Springs that same day. He has remained in custody in lieu of $50,000 bond since his arrest. A warrant for Matheny's arrest was issued Nov. 28, 2016, along with a gag order limiting pretrial publicity in the case.
According to the affidavit, on April 30, 2014, Matheny's wife filed a report with the Garland County Sheriff's Department after discovering images of child pornography on a MicroSD card she found while cleaning out boxes at her residence in Hot Springs.
She said the card contained images from a family vacation a month before and photos of about 30 nude females who appeared to be 10 to 13 years old. She recognized one as the daughter of some family friends. She noted it appeared the photos were taken by the juvenile herself inside a bathroom using a cellphone.
On July 21, 2014, Arkansas State Police Special Agent Russ Rhodes obtained a search warrant and performed a forensic examination of the MicroSD card and located a total of 13 photos of the known juvenile victim, including 10 nude photos.
On July 28, 2014, Rhodes made contact with the mother of the victim, but they were out of town on vacation so Rhodes told her he would contact her later to continue the investigation.
On Aug. 3, 2014, the victim's mother talked to her daughter, who admitted she had been communicating with someone she knew only as "Kevin" on a message app called Kik and she had sent "Kevin" nude photos of herself she took at their residence in Hot Springs.
The victim said "Kevin" had also sent her nude photos of himself. She said she thought he was a young person who went to a different school. She said she had tried unsuccessfully to meet up with him and she eventually blocked him on Kik "because he was bothering her."
The victim's mother unlocked "Kevin" on her daughter's Kik account and began communicating with him pretending to be the victim. "Kevin" sent some photos of his privates to the mother who thought she recognized the hands in the photos as those of Matheny.
She said she and her husband went to Matheny's residence in Hot Springs that same day as she continued communicating with him on Kik. They made contact with Matheny's parents at the residence and were told Matheny was in his room. She said she walked in and caught Matheny masturbating and confiscated his cellphone.
Later that same day, Rhodes interviewed Matheny and he reportedly gave a statement admitting he communicated with the victim using a dummy account and received nude photos of her. He also admitted he knew she was 12 to 13 years old, but denied any knowledge of the MicroSD card his wife found, which included the nude photos of the victim.
On Oct. 7, 2014, Rhodes obtained a search warrant for Matheny's cellphone and found 12 images of child pornography involving nude juvenile females and the Kik conversation between Matheny and the victim's mother. Matheny had a total of 28 child pornography images in his possession.
Local on 11/08/2017