THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 19, 1995 TAG: 9509190052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
Robert F. Kelly Jr., who is serving 12 life sentences for allegedly molesting children at Edenton's Little Rascals day care center, will seek freedom on bond Thursday in Pitt County Superior Court at Greenville.
Kelly's hearing is his first legal maneuver since the state Supreme Court decided last week that he and co-defendant Kathryn Dawn Wilson are entitled to new trials or dismissal of the charges. Wilson is not in prison but is serving her life sentence in home confinement.
Kelly's hearing will be before Judge James E. Ragan III of Pamlico County.
``Everything except capital murder is bondable under North Carolina law,'' said District Attorney Frank R. Parrish in Elizabeth City. ``So we'll discuss the amount at the Thursday hearing. The judge will undoubtedly set some kind of a bond.''
The state Supreme Court passed the buck to Parrish, chief prosecutor for the 1st Judicial District, to decide whether to again bring the emotionally painful Little Rascals evidence before jurors in a crowded public courtroom.
Many of the child witnesses are now growing toward their teens. Parrish said last week that putting them on the witness stand again could be traumatic.
After last week's ruling, North Carolina Attorney General Michael Easley pointed out that getting a new conviction for Kelly could be difficult.
Parrish said he would decide within a month whether to go to court with the Little Rascals evidence. The district attorney has been under heavy pressure to drop the cases.
Kelly was convicted in 1992, and Wilson in 1993, after trials that cost more than $1 million - the longest and most expensive in North Carolina history.
Parrish said he and Nancy Lamb, an assistant district attorney who was a special prosecutor for earlier Little Rascals trials, would go to Greenville for Kelly's bond hearing.
Parrish said he would confer with Lamb and other members of his staff to examine the evidence presented by witnesses in the Little Rascals cases. The trials estranged friends in Edenton and disrupted the traditional serenity of the historic Chowan County community on Albemarle Sound.
During his trial, Kelly was at one time held on bond of $1.5 million, a sum he was unable to post.
``And I doubt if he could raise that kind of bond now,'' said Jeffrey Miller, a Greenville attorney, who, with W. Michael Spivey, a Tarboro lawyer, will represent Kelly on Thursday.
``We don't know whether Mr. Kelly will appear at this week's bond hearing,'' Miller said.
Kelly has been serving his consecutive life sentences in Raleigh's Central Prison. He operated the Little Rascals day care center in Edenton with his wife, Elizabeth ``Betsy'' Kelly. She pleaded no contest and was released from prison last year.
Scott Privott, another defendant, also pleaded no contest and was released because of the time he served awaiting trial. Three other defendants have not yet gone to trial.
Neither Spivey nor Miller is formally representing Kelly, but as his former lawyers they filed petitions as ``limited counsel'' for the bond hearing.
KEYWORDS: LITTLE RASCALS DAY CARE CENTER CHILD ABUSE SEXUAL ABUSE
HEARING by CNB