VA employee arrested in April rape, abduction

A Veterans Affairs employee was arrested Tuesday and charged with raping a woman in April, according to court records.

North Little Rock police officers were dispatched April 20 to West 18th Street, where they encountered a woman who told them she had been raped.

The woman said she met a man who asked for her phone number and asked her to come out to eat with him, court documents say. Instead, the man reportedly took her to his residence in Little Rock, where they had consensual sex before he told her he wanted to have anal sex.

The woman told him no, that she did not want to do that, but, according to an affidavit, he grabbed a handgun and told her he would kill her if she refused. The woman told officers that she struck the man with a shoe, hit him and pushed him away, but that he told her “it was turning him on because she was fighting,” the report said.

The woman told officers the man overpowered and raped her then took her to Taco Bell, where he bought her food before leaving her on the side of the road. The woman immediately called police.

Evidence from a rape kit and samples taken from the food and drink containers left with the woman had some verifiable DNA that the state Crime Laboratory said belonged to Jocoby Lamar Carter, 30.

While officers were still investigating the crime, the woman said the man began texting her, asking when he could see her again and how much it would cost, according to the affidavit. The woman replied, confronting the man about the rape, but he told her she was “texting the wrong person,” according to reports.

On May 10, the woman called police and told them the man was driving by her residence “smiling” and “blowing her kisses.”

In her original testimony, the woman told officers the man had been wearing white scrubs when she met him. Officers said this could mean the man was a Veterans Affairs health care employee; they confirmed their suspicions with the Veterans Affairs police, reports say.

Detectives submitted the case to the prosecutor’s office on April 25 for review. The arrest was approved on July 2 and officers obtained a warrant for Carter’s arrest on July 11.

Officers arrested Carter Tuesday on charges of rape and kidnapping. He was in the Pulaski County jail in lieu of $50,000 bond as of Wednesday evening.