Missouri boarding school doctor wants out on bond, but still sits in Arkansas jail
One week after a Stockton doctor was taken into custody on Missouri child sex charges, he still sits in an Arkansas county jail cell.
David Smock, whose attorney said he tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after he was booked into the Boone County jail, is asking that bond be set or that he be released on his own recognizance. A judge in Cedar County denied that motion on Monday and a similar Greene County hearing was continued Tuesday morning.
Now Smock, who has treated students of Cedar County boarding schools for years, is scheduled to go before a Greene County judge Jan. 13.
It isn’t clear when Smock will be transferred to Missouri or to which county.
In the past two weeks, Smock — described by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office as “the exclusive physician for Agape Boarding School” — has been charged with a combined 11 counts in Cedar and Greene counties.
Warrants were issued for his arrest before Christmas and U.S. Marshals took him into custody Dec. 28 in a Harrison, Arkansas, “rent by the hour motel room.” Harrison is just a 1½-hour drive from Smock’s 11-bedroom home with a pool and gymnasium near Jerico Springs, the AG said in a court motion.
Prosecutors in both cases say he should not be released because of the “weight of the evidence against the defendant” and because he “has clearly demonstrated that he is a serious flight risk.”
“Defendant faces significant prison time for the total of 11 felony charges involving the sexual abuse of a minor, and thus has an increased motive to flee the jurisdiction again,” according to the prosecution’s motion filed in Greene County. “Defendant knew he had a warrant for his arrest, yet he fled the state, instead of turning himself into law enforcement.”
One of Smock’s attorneys adamantly denied that his client was ever on the run. Smock, said attorney Craig Heidemann, was on a “pre-planned Christmas visit to see his son in Louisiana,” and didn’t learn about the charges until he was out of state.
Smock planned to turn himself in the morning after he was taken into custody, Heidemann said.
But the AG said Smock was intentionally avoiding arrest.
The 11 charges against Smock in Greene and Cedar counties are all felonies. They include first- and second-degree statutory sodomy, child molestation and stalking.
The office of Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in its response to the bond motion that probable cause statements on Smock’s charges “show a long standing history of sexual abuse by Defendant against minor boys.”
Greene County prosecutors allege that Smock groomed the young male Agape student he is accused of sodomizing and molesting, buying him a cellphone, taking his family on trips and throwing him birthday parties, according to court records obtained by The Star.
The AG’s motion also says that Smock “has invited children in the community to his house on numerous occasions for parties and to utilize the gymnasium, pool, and game room.”
