Martial arts instructor pleads guilty to sexual assault
Posted on Wednesday, May 17, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/40709/
A 47-year-old Fayetteville man who was a martial arts instructor pleaded guilty Tuesday in Washington County Circuit Court to first-degree sexual assault for having sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl in a Fayetteville home.
Anthony Dwayne West entered the plea in Washington County Circuit Judge William Storey’s court. West had initially been charged with two counts of rape and one count of second-degree sexual assault in connection with a Dec. 28 incident in which he had sexual contact with the girl, a former student of his.
West was sentenced to 20 years in the Arkansas Department of Correction. He also was ordered to provide a DNA sample at a cost of $250 and register as a sex offender at a cost of another $250.
He is to have no contact with the victim.
The two rape and the second-degree sexual assault charges were dropped and he pleaded guilty to the first-degree sexual assault charge as part of the plea arrangement.
West reportedly had the sexual contact with the girl at her mother’s home in Fayetteville. He reportedly was a friend of the victim’s mother. The conduct reportedly occurred while her mother was asleep in another room. "Mr. West, clearly you violated a position of trust," Storey told West in court on Tuesday.
He called the crime West committed "abhorrent."