Ashdown police arrest registered sex offender on new charges involving a juvenile

ASHDOWN, Ark. — Ashdown police have arrested a registered sex offender on new charges involving a juvenile, three years after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Little River County. He had been paroled in July, state records show.

Dennis Lamont Arps, 26, was charged with transporting a minor for prohibited sexual conduct and two counts of sexual assault in the fourth degree, the Ashdown Police Department said in a statement Tuesday. He was taken to the Little River County Detention Center.

Police did not release details of the allegations, saying only that the arrest followed an investigation into allegations involving a juvenile. The investigation remains ongoing, Chief Boyd Kennemore said in the statement. No charges in the new case had been filed in Little River County Circuit Court as of late Tuesday morning, according to state court records.

2022 case

Arps was first charged in March 2022 with producing, directing or promoting a sexual performance by a child and sexual assault in the fourth degree, according to court records.

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The mother of a 14-year-old girl told the Little River County Sheriff’s Office on Feb. 1, 2022, that her daughter had been dating someone the girl said was 17, according to an affidavit by Sgt. Jonathon Butler. The mother learned that day that he was 21, and when she looked at the girl’s Snapchat account on her phone she found a sexual relationship between her daughter and Arps, the affidavit says.

Butler searched the phone under a warrant signed by Circuit Judge Tom Cooper and found videos showing Arps and the girl engaged in sexual acts, with both of their faces visible, the affidavit says. Arps was released on bond after his arrest.

136 mph chase

While that case was pending, Arps fled from Kennemore and a Little River County deputy on Sept. 30, 2022, according to an affidavit by Arkansas State Police Trooper Joshua Broughton. Broughton wrote that he clocked the car at 100 mph southbound on U.S. Highway 71 and that its speed climbed past 136 mph as the driver wove through traffic, passed cars on the shoulder and nearly struck a pickup head-on.

The car was stopped with spike strips on State Highway 67 near Fulton, and Arps was identified as the driver, the affidavit says. He was charged with felony fleeing, and his bond in the sex case was revoked, court records show.

Arps pleaded guilty in both cases on Sept. 26, 2023, under a negotiated plea before Cooper. He was sentenced to seven years in the Arkansas Division of Correction followed by three years of suspended imposition of sentence on the sexual performance charge, six years on the sexual assault charge and six years on the fleeing charge, with the sentences running concurrently, according to the sentencing orders.

Arps entered the Arkansas Division of Correction on Oct. 10, 2023, and was paroled July 8, about four months before his latest arrest. He was under electronic monitoring by Arkansas Community Correction, the state parole and probation agency, according to records in VINE, the statewide victim notification system. VINE lists him as in custody at the Little River County Jail.

The Arkansas sex offender registry lists Arps as a Level 2, or moderate-risk, offender for his fourth-degree sexual assault conviction, with a registered address in Ashdown.

All charges are allegations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.