TEXARKANA, Ark. - A man facing allegations of child sexual abuse in Miller County was arrested this week for allegedly threatening one of his two accusers.
William Jesse Boswell, 58, is accused of sexual misconduct with two female relatives. Boswell was arrested this week on a charge of witness intimidation for allegedly threatening to beat the older of the alleged victims and "make up lies to send her to prison" during a phone call in July, according to a probable-cause affidavit.
Boswell had been free on bonds totaling $50,000.
The older accuser, who came forward in 2018 after a younger relative in her teens made an outcry earlier the same year, reported that she had called the store where Boswell worked when he got on the phone and threatened her. The woman told investigators she called the store because she had once worked there and was hoping to get the number for the corporate office.
Boswell's case is scheduled for jury selection later this month before Circuit Judge Brent Haltom at the Miller County courthouse.
The teen was interviewed at the Texarkana Children's Advocacy Center in March 2018 and Boswell was arrested on a second-degree sexual assault charge the following month. The girl said Boswell would get into her bed and assault her when she slept over in a guest room at his Texarkana, Arkansas, apartment.
After the youngest of Boswell's alleged victims made an outcry of sexual abuse, an adult female relative came forward as well.
"(The alleged victim) has suffered silently through these past years until her (relative) made an outcry of sexual assault from William Boswell," the affidavit states.
The older accuser reported that she was abused sexually by Boswell at his home in Miller County when she was an 11-year-old in 2000 but that Boswell's alleged misconduct with her began when she was 7 and Boswell lived in Horatio, Arkansas, and Dierks, Arkansas.
The allegations of both of Boswell's accusers are remarkably similar. The older alleged victim reported to an investigator with the Miller County Sheriff's Office that Boswell would wake her and abuse her at night while others in the home were asleep. Boswell has been charged with rape and sexual indecency with a child in that case, alleged to have occurred from 2000 to 2003.
Second-degree sexual assault is punishable by five to 20 years in prison and a fine up to $15,000. Sexual indecency with a child is punishable by up to six years in prison and a fine up to $10,000. Rape is punishable by 10 to 40 years or life in prison.