Rape charges lead to an hours-long standoff with police in West Plains.
On Thursday, West Plains Police received information that a man with an Arkansas warrant for rape charges was residing in a home on Tiffany Street. When officers arrived around 5:15 that evening, 38-year-old James Michael Meese ran into the house and barricaded himself inside. From there, Meese refused to exit the home even after WPPD Crisis Negotiations attempted to communicate with him.
Police eventually got inside the house after several hours and arrested Meese.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Arkansas took a statement from a 14- year-old girl who claims that she had been having sexual relations with Meese since May. According to the statement, she initially had contact with him about two years ago when her and another female wanted to smoke marijuana which Meese supplied and whenever they met up he would rub her “private areas.”
The girls stated that after a few of these encounters, she told Meese that it “didn’t feel right” and she was thinking about going to the police; that’s when she said that Meese threatened her saying that if she did, he would either kill her or find someone to do the job for him.
At one point. after refusing Meese’s advances, he proceeded to have sexual intercourse with her anyway and recorded it on his phone.
Meese is currently being held in Howell County Jail and is being charged with rape, fourth-degree sexual assault and first-degree terroristic threatening. Meese is also facing additional charges that Howell county has not yet filed.
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