WASHINGTON COUNTY : Trainer gets prison time for rape at fitness center
Posted on Thursday, July 10, 2008
A Washington County jury convicted a fitness trainer on Wednesday of raping a Bentonville woman at his now defunct Bodies for Christ Training Center in Springdale.
James Solomon, 39, was sentenced to 35 years in prison by Circuit Judge Kim Smith. State law requires Solomon to serve at least 70 percent of the sentence, officials said.
Solomon was also convicted on charges of failure to appear during the two-day trial. Smith sentenced Solomon to 15 years with 10 years to run consecutively and five years to run concurrently.
Deputy prosecutor Charles Duell told jurors Solomon gained the trust of vulnerable women, lured them to his training centers after hours, promised to help them, demonstrated exercises and then began touching them inappropriately.
Solomon did not testify, but said through his attorney that the sex was consensual.
Solomon also faces prison time for violating conditions of his probation on federal drug charges in the Eastern District of Oklahoma. He was found guilty at a revocation hearing, but has not been sentenced.
He had been ordered to report to prison April 2 to begin serving a five-year sentence for violating his supervised release from a 1999 federal drug conspiracy conviction in eastern Oklahoma. He disappeared in February, leaving a suicide note behind.
He was declared a fugitive Feb. 8 and was arrested April 10 by marshals who tracked him to Los Angeles, where he had dyed his hair, grown a beard and was living under the name Daniel Miller.
Solomon is also charged with two counts of second-degree sexual assault in Crawford County. He failed to appear for a trial on March 6, and a new trial date has not been set, according to a deputy court clerk. Both accusers in these cases testified Tuesday that he touched them inappropriately at his Bodies for Christ facility in Van Buren.
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