NOTE: The jury selection process for trials set this week was modified to allow for recommended “social distancing.” Three juries were chosen Monday at the Vada Sheid Community Development Center on the campus of Arkansas State University-Mountain Home. The facility allowed the large number of prospective jurors to be separated. The trials are being held at the Court Complex.
A former Baxter County Deputy Sheriff and School Resource Officer at Cotter charged with six counts of sexual assault involving a then 16-year-old female student at the school was found guilty by a Baxter County Circuit Court Jury Tuesday.
The jury recommended a sentence of 10 years probation and a fine of $5,000 per count for 35-year-old Matthew Guthrie, and Circuit Judge John Putman accepted the recommendation.
Guthrie faced the possibility of a 180-year prison sentence. He will have to register as a sex offender.
According to court records, the former deputy sheriff is reported to have admitted having “consensual” sex with the student.
Guthrie took the stand and testified that it was the 16-year-old who had first asked him if he would like to be in a dating relationship.
The defense further claimed that the victim not only initiated the relationship, but also controlled it as well in terms of when and where the couple would meet.
At one point during his testimony, Guthrie termed the relationship with the teen, “a one hundred percent dumb a.. mistake.”
While the victim was on the stand, she told the court that she and Guthrie had struck up a relationship that eventually turned sexual. She said it was Guthrie who made the first moves, including directing “flirty comments” at her.
Deputy Prosecutor Kerry Chism told the jurors it made no difference how the relationship started. “Mr. Guthrie was the adult in the room, and he should have said no when approached by a 16-year-old girl at a school where his job was to keep kids safe.”
Chism said as a School Resource Office at Cotter, Guthrie had a duty to protect students such as the victim. “This case is about a man who, for his own self-gratification, abused his power and authority.”
After the relationship ended when rumors about its existence began circulating, the student was interviewed July 25, 2019 and told investigators she had sex with Guthrie multiple times at different locations in Baxter County
Guthrie is alleged to have said the sexual relations with the student took place between May-and-July, 2019. The encounters did not take place on school property.
According to testimony, the couple had sexual relations at the victim’s home, at Guthrie’s residence, and at a cabin and rental property Guthrie owned.
During the pretrial period, defense attorney John Crain had asked to speak to the victim, but she would not talk to him. While she was on the stand Tuesday, Crain asked her why she had not been willing to talk.
She quickly replied, “I am the victim here. I was sexually assaulted. I didn’t want to talk to the man who was trying to keep (Guthrie) out of jail.”
There is no law, which requires a victim to be made available to the defense attorney during the pretrial period.
During the investigation, Guthrie was interviewed at the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office. A tape of that interview was played for the jury.
Initially, Guthrie flatly denies having any sort of relationship with the teenage girl.
At one point, an investigator tells him she has the girl’s cellphone and that data had been retrieved from the phone. He was warned, “don’t paint yourself into a corner.”
Guthrie then began to discuss the relationship, including the sexual encounters.
In testimony during Tuesday’s trial, there was testimony that the girl and Guthrie shared explicit pictures of one another by way of their cellphones.
During the interview, after investigators leave the room, Guthrie sits alone. At one point, he is heard to say, “guess I’ll be a sex offender.”
The allegation was initially brought to 14th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney David Ethredge by the girl’s parents. Ethredge requested an investigation by the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division.
Charges were brought based on that investigation.
Guthrie was hired as a jailer in January 2016 and was transferred to the position of School Resource Officer the next year. He was fired July 26 last 2019, the day he was arrested on the sexual assault charges, according to Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery.
At the time of Guthrie’s arrest, Montgomery said the fate of the former deputy was “now in the hands of the judicial system, and we expect he will be treated no differently than any other person” facing such serious charges.
The former deputy has been free on $100,000 bond.
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