Accused acts out struggle for jury

In trial, he denies he raped woman

James Lee Foley, recounting the fight for his life, flailed his arms Tuesday to show how he had struck back at a mysterious attacker.

He leaped to his feet three times to act out how he had struggled with an assailant who had come out of nowhere to attack him with a machete while he was naked in bed and a little bit high. The 55-yearold Little Rock man’s voice rose excitedly as he contorted his body to demonstrate just how he grappled with the stranger.

“Dude tried to kill me. I thought he was hitting me with a switch,” Foley told a Pulaski County jury Tuesday. “He came in with a machete. The lights are out, and I’m butt-naked in bed.”

But Foley, who spent about 38 minutes exuberantly detailing his version of what happened back in October 2016, is the one on trial. He is accused of raping a 69-year-old woman, and his criminal record — 15 felonies over 30 years — means that, although jurors don’t know it, a fight for Foley’s life is playing out in front of them because a conviction means an automatic life sentence.

Closing arguments are scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday before Circuit Judge Barry Sims.

Foley denied raping anyone, telling jurors that the 69-year-old accuser is “too old. She’s older than my mama. I wouldn’t touch her.”

“This is my first time seeing her up close,” he testified. “I know a lot of women and they’ll tell you, Foley ain’t like that. I ain’t never raped a woman in my life.”

Foley’s lawyers, Colleen Kordsmeier and Joe Tobler, told jurors that he’s being framed to cover up how he was robbed of thousands of dollars in drugs and money that night. They say he was lured to the home of a woman he had fallen in love with, drawn in with the promise of kinky sex, only to be ambushed while he was naked and vulnerable. Foley was the only one who went to the hospital that night, they noted.

“Lots of holes and a lot of missing pieces” in the prosecution’s case, Kordsmeier said in her opening. “They’ve already got his money. Don’t let them take his freedom, too.”

Police arrested Foley that night, arriving at 305 Thayer St. to find him naked and fighting with resident 48-year-old Lar-

ry Dean Farlow, who was wearing only boxer shorts. Farlow was renting a room at the house from the woman of Foley’s affection, Janet Glover. The accuser, a Russellville woman, was staying with Farlow while getting medical treatment.

According to testimony, Glover called Farlow to come to her room and put Foley — who was a stranger to him — out of the house. When Foley belligerently refused to go, cursing Farlow and trying to hit him, Farlow responded by getting the machete and using it, although he said he only hit Foley with the blunt side, according to testimony.

In the resulting melee between the men, Farlow ended up locked out of the house. He said he was outside when he heard the Russellville woman screaming his name and that he got back inside to see Foley roughly violating the woman, who was wearing only a nightgown, with one hand while restraining her in a choke hold with his other arm.

Farlow testified that he pulled Foley off the woman, and the men resumed fighting up until about the time police arrived.

The woman testified that she’d never seen Foley before that night. She said she’d tried to escape his attention after seeing him scuffling with Farlow, but that he’d burst into the bedroom and “in a split-second” overpowered her.

“I hoped he didn’t know I was there,” she tearfully told jurors during her 35 minutes on the witness stand. “He gripped me so hard my feet came off the ground. He was … telling me I liked it, I liked it. I couldn’t do anything but yell for help. There was no defending myself.”