A-State student facing child pornography charges

JONESBORO — An Arkansas State University student faces decades in prison after a joint police probe revealed he uploaded thousands of files containing child pornography to the internet.

In May, the university’s police department sent a cybertip to Jonesboro’s High Tech Crimes Unit, according to the probable cause affidavit. The tip contained 296 files and registration information for a Dropbox account.

Information technology staffers at A-State found that the Internet Protocol address used to upload the files was assigned to the Collegiate Park Apartments on campus, the affidavit indicates.

A search warrant for the data from the digital service account uncovered 3,017 videos and photos filed in folders like “Pedo” and “PTHC,” which UPD Lt. Andrew Thrasher noted means “preteen hardcore.”

“A large majority of them contained child sexual exploitation involving children as young as toddlers, both male and female,” the affidavit read, noting the files contained videos of forcible rape of prepubescent children.

When officers arrested Jondon Jason, 19, of Fifty Six, they seized his cellphone. In an interview with investigators, the Stone County man admitted to downloading, viewing and sharing files to the Dropbox.

“He advised he sued the Omegle app as well as the Kik app to obtain the files in his possession,” the affidavit read. Special District Court Judge Dan Stidham found probable cause to charge Jason with distributing, possessing and viewing matter depicting sexual conduct involving child; and computer child pornography.

With the severity of the charges and Jason’s lack of a criminal history in mind, a $50,000 cash or surety bond was set. As part of his pre-trial release, Stidham barred the suspect from accessing the internet or owning any internetenabled devices, like cellphones, computers and tablets.

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FAULKNER COUNTY— Twelve jurors have been selected to serve in the capital murder case against a 20-year-old Pine Bluff man accused of kidnapping and killing Elvia Fragstein.

More than 50 Faulkner County residents were considered over the week by 20th Judicial District Prosecutor Carol Crews, senior deputy prosecutor John Hout and the defense team – attorneys William “Bill” James Jr. and Jeff Rosenzweig. By Friday afternoon, eight women and four men had been selected to serve on the death penalty case.

Tacori D. Mackrell is charged with capital murder, kidnapping, robbery and theft of property in connection to Fragstein’s disappearance and death.

The 72-year-old Wooster woman was reported missing by her husband, Helmut, on July 7, 2018, and later found dead on Gibb Anderson Road in rural Jefferson County.

Authorities believe Mackrell and his younger cousin, Robert L. Smith III, abducted the Wooster woman outside the Conway Commons shopping center on the day in question and

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killed her.

Though Smith was charged as and adult, he cannot face the death penalty because he was 16 years old at the time of the alleged offense, per Arkansas law.

Voire dire (jury selection) was scheduled to continue Monday morning in Faulkner County Circuit Court as attorneys work to select five alternate jurors in Mackrell’s case. The death penalty trial is expected to begin on Thursday and is scheduled to run through Oct. 16.

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JONESBORO — At least 512 people on the main campus of Arkansas State University have been infected by the coronavirus, since June 1, the university disclosed.

But, as of Friday, the university had only 69 active cases and 443 have recovered.

Among current active cases, 26 involve students living on campus, 32 students living off campus, nine campus employees and two vendors or contractors.

The numbers the university released are higher than those reported Thursday by the Arkansas Department of Health. That report showed only 280 cases.

However, ASU notes on its website its figures are based on self-reporting to the Delta Population Health Institute of New York Institute of Technology medical school, working in cooperation with A-State to provide testing and contact tracing for the university.

They also include cases that may have been initially reported through the health department or the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and forwarded to NYITCOM.

Chancellor Kelly Damphousse said in an email to students Friday’s numbers were below those on Labor Day.

“Our success managing the pandemic in the first onethird of the fall semester is directly attributable to all of us following our Return to Learn guidelines,” Dampousse said in the email. “We all knew that we would have some positive cases on campus, but so far, because of your diligence and cooperation, we have avoided the type of wider outbreaks seen on other university campuses.

Every day forward gives me more confidence in our ability to end the semester as we started it.”

Damphousse noted ASU is one of the few universities across the country that provides daily updates.

Jonesboro isn’t the only university campus that shows a discrepancy in reporting with the health department.

The University of Arkansas Fayetteville campus reported Friday it had 85 active cases and that 1,535 cases had recovered. The ADH report showed 1,906 faculty and students had been infected.

The health department report also showed there were 20 active cases at the ASU-Newport Jonesboro campus as of Thursday. In all, 114 students or faculty or staff members at the technical school have been infected with the virus since the health department started accounting for campus cases on June 15.

Williams Baptist University at Walnut Ridge had seven active cases and a cumulative total of 46, while Black River Technical College of Pocahontas had five cases and a cumulative total of 17, only seven of whom were students. Other institutions in the region may have had cases, but ADH doesn’t disclose counts of less than five cases to protect patient confidentiality.