Man charged with indecency shot anti-bullying video

A 35-year-old man awaiting trial over accusations he exposed himself to children in Little Rock has affiliated himself under an assumed name with a school-endorsed anti- bullying program to produce a promotional video featuring interviews with local schoolchildren.

Brandon Charles Runion, who once tried to abduct a high school senior from a North Little Rock mall, is scheduled for trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court in February on indecency charges.

He did not respond to emails sent Friday seeking comment. It also was not clear Friday where he lives. He has lived at residences in Benton and Hot Springs, and his film production company lists an address on Montreal Drive in Little Rock, court files and state records show.

Garland County Circuit Court records show a judge ordered Runion’s arrest on Sept. 22 to answer a complaint that he owes $5,695 in child support payments that were owed between September 2012 and August 2014 for his 12-year-old daughter.

Runion was arrested in September 2012 in the 5300 block of Evergreen Drive after a Little Rock police officer reported seeing him masturbating in front of a 14-yearold girl, court records show. Police stopped the vehicle, which was missing a license plate, across the street from Mount St. Mary Academy on Kavanaugh Boulevard and found the license plate inside, according to police reports. According to court filings, he had similarly exposed himself to two other children two days before his arrest.

Charged with three counts of sexual indecency with a child, Runion faces a maximum penalty of 18 years in prison. An amended criminal information document filed Wednesday listed “Brody Chaze” as an alias for Run- ion, who is currently free on $100,000 bond. He has not been accused of any further crimes since the charges were filed.

In January 2007, Runion pleaded guilty to felony attempted kidnapping and misdemeanor harassment in exchange for five years of probation and a $500 fine. According to police reports and court records, Runion tried to abduct an 18-yearold North Little Rock High School senior from McCain Mall in November 2004 on the day before Thanksgiving.

The 18- year- old victim said a man in his 20s stopped her in the parking lot near the main entrance to ask her a question and when she got close to his red Chevrolet Blazer, he grabbed her and tried to force her into the vehicle, but she got away.

About five weeks later, in January 2005, the same man, driving a white four- door 1998 Ford Contour showed up at the North Little Rock West Campus as she was leaving and asked her for directions to the freeway, but she walked away from him. Then in March 2005, the man showed up at the school again in the same car. Later that same day, the woman identified Runion out of a police line-up as the man she’d seen. Runion was arrested two weeks later, court filings show.

Runion, using the name Brody Chaze; his brother, Bryan Michael Reece Runion, 24, of Little Rock; and a third man, Cody Harris, formed the film production company TGU Films in January, according to incorporation filings with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office.

Brody Chaze was listed early Friday as the company’s chief executive officer, with Bryan Runion as its chief operations officer and their sister, Holly Kaufman, as the director of financial operations, according to the TGU website, www.tgufilms.com. Brandon and Bryan Runion do not disclose their familial relationship on their company’s Facebook page, which describes them as “longtime colleagues.”

TGU Films partnered with the Building Communities Not Bullies committee, which is sponsored by the Arkansas Education Association, to produce a 22-minute promotional video shown on both the Building Communities website (buildcommunitiesnotbullies.org) and the TGU Films site. The video lists Brody Chaze as the director.

Building Communities Chairman Steven Juain Young said he did not know Chaze’s background until informed by the Arkansas

Democrat-Gazette on Friday. He said he had not had any contact with Chaze for weeks and that the group will having nothing further to do with him.

“We would never want to be affiliated with someone like that,” Young said. “We do not have any other ties with this gentleman and will have no further affiliation with him.”

Young said he was grateful to be informed about Brandon Runion but he hoped the man’s slight involvement with the anti-bullying group, which has been supported by the Pulaski County, Little Rock and North Little Rock school districts, will not detract from the program’s efforts to curb bullying and encourage child development.

Young said that the man, whom he knew only as Brody Chaze, was never alone with children during the filming of the video. Chaze produced the video as an unpaid volunteer, although he has done some paid webpage design work for the group, Young said.

Young said he’d seen a clip of the man’s work through a mutual acquaintance, found it impressive, and had approached him about making the Building Communities video.