By JIM HARDIN
CNHI
Rockwall County —
A 36-year-old man who tried to persuade a first grade girl to leave school with him last March has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $10,000 after pleading guilty to attempted kidnapping.
Judge Brett Hall of 382nd District Court assessed the maximum sentence Tuesday, a day after Desi Smalley of Mesquite entered a guilty plea on the attempted kidnapping charge.
“We are absolutely asking for the maximum sentence of 10 years in this case,” Criminal District Attorney Kenda Culpepper, lead prosecutor in the case, told Hall during final arguments.
Terese Easter, Smalley’s court-appointed lawyer, asked the judge for a two-year prison sentence and an opportunity for the defendant to enter a drug treatment program.
Before sentencing Smalley, Hall said his decision was based on the evidence, nature of the crime and how this incident has affected children and parents.
Culpepper said in a news release that the case has mobilized the community.
“If you try to harm a child in Rockwall County, you will be severely punished,” she said. “I applaud the courage of the first grader who alerted school authorities to a stranger in their midst and the dedication of teachers who strive to keep their students safe.”
Testimony indicated Smalley approached the girl in the cafeteria at Dorothy Smith Pullen Elementary School in Heath and attempted to persuade her to leave the school with him. The student insisted she did not know the man. School officials intervened.
According to evidence presented during the punishment hearing, Smalley has an extensive criminal history and was under the influence of PCP at the time of the offense.
The judge heard testimony from seven prosecution witnesses — school personnel, police officer, probation officer and the young victim’s mother. There were no witnesses for the defense.
According to testimony, Smalley parked his car in a bus lane near the school’s cafeteria shortly before noon on March 4. Doors to the cafeteria were locked, but a third grader opened the door for Smalley. He entered, walked across the cafeteria, then stopped near students who were lined up to leave the cafeteria.
Renee LeCour, an instruction assistant at the school who was supervising students in the cafeteria, said she saw a man talking to the student. LeCour said the girl was shaking her head from side to side and appeared to be uncomfortable.
When she approached the student, the girl said, “I don’t know him.”
LeCour said the man responded, “No, I’m here to help you.”
The school employee told the man he needed a visitor’s badge and escorted him to the office. He got the badge and returned to the cafeteria. LeCour said the man then stood near a cafeteria door and started offering ice cream, milk and other food items to various students.
LeCour said the man could not identify the girl by name and it appeared he did not belong there. She alerted the school staff that a stranger was in the building.
Mary Ann Benavides, the school’s assistant principal, later escorted the man to his car. But he did not leave the school immediately. LeCour said he drove his car to another location in the parking lot, got out, walked around for a minute, then got back in his car and drove away.
The incident, LeCour said, “was very upsetting to the students.”
Nicole Crowell, the student’s teacher, said her children were in their “dismissal line” when she noticed the victim was trying “anxiously to get my attention.”
She said the student told her: “He’s not my father. He’s not my cousin. He’s not my uncle.”
The girl said the man told her that she needed to leave with him.
“I did not know him,” the girl said.
Later, the teacher said, she learned that the man put his hand on the girl’s shoulder at one point and said, “You need to come with me.”
Crowell said her students had watched a video on “stranger danger.” The video, she said, taught students how to deal with strangers. If the student had not had this education, the teacher said, “it could have been a different situation.”
The next day, Crowell said, the student “was not the confident child she had been.” She held the teacher’s hand and was concerned about who would be with her at lunch.
Rhonda Davis, the victim’s mother, said the incident has affected her daughter “greatly.” Davis said her daughter has had trouble sleeping since the incident occurred. Lack of sleep, Davis said, has caused her daughter to have a problem with headaches.
Davis said she “quite regularly” talked with her children about how to respond if a stranger approaches them. The morning her daughter was approached at school, Davis said, she talked to her about “stranger danger.”
Responding to a question asked by Culpepper, Davis said “never in my wildest dreams did I expect to receive a call on something like that (the attempted kidnapping).”
Culpepper asked what they thought would be the appropriate punishment for Smalley.
“I think he should get the maximum,” Davis responded. “I wouldn’t want this to happen to any other child or any other parent.”
Brian Burton of the Heath Department of Public Safety was among the officers who responded after receiving a call about the school incident. Burton said he and Sgt. Scott Trammell met with the assistant principal and viewed a video that showed the man inside the school.
Burton said officers got the man’s name and photo from the Texas identification card he used to get his visitor’s pass at the school. Someone at the school also wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle the man was driving.
The next morning, Burton said, officers learned that Smalley had been arrested in Clark County, Arkansas. A few days later, Smalley was sentenced to one year in jail for stealing gas valued at $4.
Burton said he had taught the “stranger danger” program, which teaches kids how to respond if strangers approach them.
Culpepper said the program is “designed to protect kids from people like Desi Smalley. Is that correct?”
The officer respond, “Yes.”
David Ahl, a Rockwall County probation officer, said Smalley admitted to him during an interview that he used alcohol, marijuana and PCP, which has a mind-altering, hallucinogenic effect on users. Ahl said Smalley reported that he used PCP the day before the school incident.
Ahl also testified that Smalley had served time in state jail on four different occasions. He has convictions for offenses that include possession of marijuana, possession of a controlled substance, driving while intoxicated, theft, assault, and attempting to take a weapon from a public servant.
He was released from state jail seven months before the school incident. He was released on Aug. 5 after completing a 180-day sentence for evading arrest.
Earlier in the hearing, records showing that Smalley had been convicted of 14 different misdemeanor and felony criminal cases were admitted as evidence. None of the cases involved sex offenses.
Because of Smalley’s extensive criminal history, the offense was enhanced from a state jail felony to a third degree felony.
The range of punishment for state jail convictions is 180 days to two years. A third degree felony is punishable by two to 10 years in prison.
If the defendant had been successful in persuading the child to leave the school with him, Culpepper said during final arguments, “there’s no telling what he would have done to that child.”
