Jury selection to begin in LR in child sex trial
Michigan man faces charges
Jury selection is set to begin this afternoon in federal court in Little Rock in the trial of a Michigan man indicted on charges of enticement of a minor, production of child pornography, receipt of child pornography, and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
Jeremy Robert Ward, 33, of Marine City, Mich., was charged in a federal criminal complaint filed Nov. 7, 2022 in federal court in Little Rock with travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. A month later, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Ward on the same charge. A superseding indictment returned last October added six counts of production of child pornography and one count each of receipt of child pornography and enticement of a minor.
According to court documents, on Oct. 15, 2022, Ward is alleged to have traveled from his home in Michigan to Bryant — a distance of about 950 miles — to try and talk a 12-year-old girl he met online into returning to Michigan with him. The affidavit said the girl was riding her bicycle that day when she was approached by a man in a blue pickup truck who was later identified as Ward, whom court records said she had met in September 2022 on the messaging app Snapchat. The affidavit said the two soon progressed to having conversations by cellphone.
During the Oct. 15 encounter, which the girl recorded on her cellphone, the affidavit said, Ward attempted to persuade the girl to return to Michigan with him. He could be heard saying on the recording, “I was hoping to take you home,” and “I just wish she [her mom] would let you go, especially since I drove all the way down here.” According to the affidavit, Ward and the girl were seen walking together on Oct. 15 on surveillance footage from a Ring doorbell camera in the neighborhood.
The next day, the affidavit said, the girl’s father contacted the Bryant Police Department to make a report, telling police that he had seen that she was out of her allowed area through a cellphone application.
After going to that location, the affidavit said, the father found his daughter and Ward lying in a grassy area together with Ward’s pants around his ankles, at which point he said Ward fled into the woods.
A search of the girl’s cellphone turned up Ward’s phone number and a search of Ward’s criminal history revealed that he is a registered sex offender in Michigan, with a 2013 conviction on multiple counts of possession of child
sexually abusive material.
The search also turned up the cellphone video during which the two had a conversation about whether Ward intended to kidnap her.
“Think I’m going to kidnap you or something?” Ward said on the video, according to the affidavit, to which the girl replied, “You probably are about to at this point.”
According to court records, Ward was arrested on Nov. 10, 2022, by authorities in the Eastern District of Michigan acting on a federal arrest warrant issued from the Eastern District of Arkansas, charging him with travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct.
In a pretrial hearing held on Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker, the presiding judge over the trial, ordered attorneys on both sides to be in court by 11 a.m. Jury selection is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., after which attorneys for both sides are expected to give opening statements prior to government attorneys calling their first prosecution witness.
Representing Ward are defense attorneys Toney Baker Brausell and Robert Golden, both of Little Rock. Prosecuting the case for the U.S. government are Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kristin Bryant and Amanda Fields.
If convicted, Ward, who has a prior conviction in Michigan for enticement and production of child pornography, could be sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison on each of the production counts, 15 to 40 years on the receipt count, a maximum of 30 years on the travel count, and 10 years to life on the enticement count.
The trial is expected to conclude on Wednesday or Thursday.