Charges sealed at 20-year-olds court appearance Thursday morning in sexual assault case; $5000 bond

A 20-year-old Fort Smith man appeared in Sebastian County Circuit Court Thursday morning and was bound over for trial and held on a $5000 legally sufficient bond after an arrest on Tuesday for what appears to be multiple counts of Sexual Assault in the Fourth Degree-Intercourse, according to booking information from the Sebastian County Detention Center.

The exact number and specific nature of the counts are unknown at this time since the court sealed the charges after Tommy Dean Hutson entered a not-guilty plea at an 8:30 am court appearance today.

Hutson was booked into the SCDC as being a resident of Fort Smith, but his social media accounts list a Mansfield address earlier in the year. The offense date on the booking information is listed as November 1 of this year.

The charges have not been posted to either Arkansas Court Connect or the Sebastian County court record system at this time, but the information does reveal that Hutson was charged with seven counts (A-G) although none have been specified.

According to Arkansas state law, a person commits sexual assault in the fourth degree if the person is twenty years of age or older and engages in sexual intercourse or deviate from sexual activity with another person who is less than sixteen years of age; and. list the person's spouse. Sexual Assault in the Fourth Degree-Intercourse in Arkansas is a Class D Felony punishable by up to six years in prison on each count.