Little Rock man convicted of rape

FAYETTEVILLE — A Little Rock man was convicted in Washington County Circuit Court on Thursday evening of raping a Fayetteville woman three years ago.

Jimmie Wayne Holland Jr, 41, was accused of raping a 21-year-old woman he met on an online dating site after she invited him to her west Fayetteville home Sept. 29, 2016. He was sentenced to 33 years at the Arkansas Department of Correction. He’ll have to serve 70 percent of the sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

Jurors were told during the sentencing phase Holland has a long history of harassing and stalking women he met online. He has numerous arrests but had no prior convictions.

Two women, one from Benton County and one from Little Rock, told jurors when they tried to end relationships with Holland he became aggressive in stalking them at home, work and in public. One said he showed up at her house with a gun and came to her office at a state law enforcement agency even after she got a restraining order and he had been arrested for violating it.

One woman said she changed locks, changed phone numbers and her Facebook account and the abuse continued, even after she had police following her for protection when she would leave her house. She eventually had to move and Holland showed up at her door in the new city. He was arrested and still continued to pursue her.

Deputy prosecutor Kevin Metcalf said there were a “bunch more” women victimized by Holland who didn’t come forward to tell their stories.

“It’s been a struggle but there are people like this out there who are smart enough not be prosecuted,” Metcalf said.

Jurors deliberated more than four hours before finding Holland guilty of rape.

Metcalf told jurors during the guilt phase of the trial there were two versions of the events the evening of Sept. 29, 2016.

“This whole trial boils down to one moment in time. Only two people were present,” Metcalf said. “What it comes down to is whose version are you going to believe about that one moment in time. Who are you going to find credible? That’s what you have to ask yourself.”

Metcalf argued evidence in the case fit the woman’s recollection of events.

The woman claimed Holland raped her after the two performed several consensual sex acts on each other in her bedroom. Holland denied he raped the woman.

“The actual sexual intercourse, she didn’t want,” Metcalf said. “She said no.”

The woman broke down several times on the witness stand. She told jurors they had a miscommunication about when to meet and Holland was angry and abusive about that before they even met. After she refused to have sexual intercourse with him, Holland again became angry and verbally abusive, she said. The woman said she wasn’t enjoying any of the sexual acts and didn’t want to have intercourse but was scared to ask Holland to leave.

“I was scared that if I asked him to leave, he’d get mad again,” she told jurors.

Shane Wilkinson, Holland’s attorney, told jurors his client’s actions may have been distasteful, including a series of angry, abusive text and voice messages he sent before they even met for the first time, but that didn’t mean Holland raped the woman. Wilkinson said there wasn’t evidence a rape occurred.

“Jimmie Holland was a class-A jerk. He was a jerk in those messages and he was a jerk at her house. If he was charged with being a class-A jerk, these deliberations wouldn’t take long here today,” Wilkinson told jurors. “The state simply did not prove its case.”

Holland initially told police he didn’t know the woman and never met her.