Bond revocation sought for suspect in 3 assaults

JOHN LYNCH

Pulaski County prosecutors have moved to revoke the bond of a 33-year-old North Little Rock man charged in separate attacks, including rape, against three women in two counties.

David Thomas’ six felony arrests since April 2019 have resulted in 19 felony charges in Faulkner and Pulaski counties that also include drug-trafficking and domestic violence counts, and burglary. Court records show Thomas, with convictions for forgery, marijuana possession, domestic violence and robbery, has been in prison or on parole for the past 12 years.

Deputy prosecutor Whitney Ohlhausen filed paperwork Monday for Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson to revoke Thomas’ $50,000 bond, citing the conditions of Thomas’ most recent felony arrest, which occurred Sept. 10 in Faulkner County and resulted in seven drug and assault charges.

According to an arrest affidavit, on that date Conway police heard the sound of a car crash on Interstate 40 around the Oak Street eastbound exit ramp. At the top of the ramp, officers found Thomas and Kristie Lee Southard, 29, sitting next to a wrecked Ford Expedition that was blocking traffic.

Southard told police she was giving Thomas a ride to North Little Rock when an argument broke out and Thomas grabbed the steering wheel, jerked it to the right and caused the sport utility vehicle to crash into the guardrail, then spin back into the highway. Police estimated that the Expedition was moving at 75-80 mph when it crashed, the affidavit states.

Thomas grappled with the officers trying to take him into custody and ran away, despite officers using an electric stun gun on him. He fell twice before officers caught up with him. On Thomas’ trail, police found a cloth bag containing methamphetamine, crack cocaine and powder cocaine, according to the affidavit.

Thomas, who said he had asthma, complained that he was having difficulty breathing. Officers noted that Thomas appeared to try to make his condition worse, despite officers’ efforts to stop him, as they waited for an ambulance. Paramedics checked his vitals at the scene and cleared him to go to jail.

He was released from jail three days later after posting a $40,000 bond.

At the time of his September arrest, Thomas had been out of the Pulaski County jail about six months under a $55,000 bond set in March on five criminal cases, plus a motion to revoke a suspended prison sentence that he received in January 2017 for choking and beating a previous girlfriend, Ashanti Jones-Frye of Sherwood, in front of her daughters, court filings show. Thomas also was sentenced to three years in prison for that attack as well as for being in possession of counterfeit $100 bills in Sherwood.

Thomas was approved for parole in October 2018, then was arrested on drug charges in North Little Rock in July 2019. He spent about three months in jail before posting a $3,500 bond in October 2019, then was arrested in March 2020 on felony domestic-violence charges by Jacksonville police.

His next arrest came in November 2020 when Little Rock police stopped the car in which Thomas was a passenger in the 1900 block of Rice Street because the white 2015 Toyota Corolla had been stolen during a carjacking an hour earlier in the 4100 block of West 24th Street.

Thomas and the three other vehicle occupants — Viviann Lamontrice Kirk, 25, of Sherwood, Ronald Hurd, 63, of Dermott and Maurice Rosean Bailey, 32 — were arrested after officers reported finding a gun, methamphetamine and cocaine in the car. No one has been charged in the carjacking.

When Thomas was taken to jail, he was served with domestic-violence and rape warrants. The domestic charge stemmed from an August 2020 report by another girlfriend, 35-year-old Serita Crawford, that Thomas had pushed her down and tried to choke her with a metal pipe before leaving her North Little Rock home, court records show.

The rape charge was based on a complaint by another woman who reported that Thomas had attacked her in her sleep in July 2020 at the Shorter Gardens apartments on North Beech Street. The woman knew Thomas only as “Lil Dave” and told police he had been making sexual advances toward her for some time, although she had rebuffed him.

According to arrest reports, the 22-year-old woman said she had been awakened in her bed over the July 4, 2020, holiday by Lil Dave holding a flashlight over her head. Lil Dave told her that her apartment door was open, but as the woman led him out of her residence he began to rub his body against her and proposition her for sex, the reports said. The door was not locking properly because someone had broken into her apartment a few days earlier, the woman told police.

She declined his advances and got Lil Dave to leave, then pushed a couch against her door to secure it and went back to sleep, she told officers. She said she was awakened again to find the man having sex with her, reports said. She told officers she fought him off of her, and he took his clothes and left.

After denying any relationship with the woman, Thomas later told detectives that he and she had been in a consensual sexual relationship, arrest reports state.

The woman never went to the police about Thomas, telling investigators she was afraid of what her boyfriend would do if he found out what had happened, reports said.

Detectives had sought her out after learning about her accusations two days later while investigating how Thomas had come to be shot that same holiday week at the apartment complex, an incident that Thomas reportedly attributed to a “misunderstanding,” with no charges filed. A witness told police Thomas had been shot by the woman’s boyfriend.

Thomas spent about 3½ months in jail before his bail was set in March at $55,000, and he was released March 24.

Thomas was in the Faulkner County jail Friday with bail set at $2 million. Records show that he was arrested Oct. 28 and has been charged with two misdemeanor counts of violation of a no contact order.

Details of the allegations were not immediately available, but court and jail records show that one charge stems from his Faulkner County charges, which included a court order that he stay away from Southard. The second count was filed Friday.