by SHELDON COMPTON
Staff Writer

PRESTONSBURG — A Grethel man charged with indecent exposure and disorderly conduct went to trial Tuesday and lost after a jury of six people found him guilty on both charges.
Ricky Clark, 42, of Nathan Carrol Drive in Grethel, was found guilty on the charges which stemmed from a May 15 criminal complaint taken out by his neighbor, Greg Sparks.
Sparks claimed that five days earlier, on May 10, Clark had intentionally exposed himself while urinating in the road in view of his family and their guests. Sparks also said in his complaint that Clark had come to the side of his home and “started to bang something” making a loud noise that had disturbed his family.
During trial Monday, Assistant Floyd County Attorney Jimmy Marcum told the six jurors that the case was simple.
“This is a case of a family wanting to live in place and a man who wouldn’t let them,” Marcum told the jury.
According to Marcum, Sparks and Clark had a past history of disputes, something which eventually led to Clark’s behavior on May 10.
As key evidence in the trial, Marcum provided the court with a videotaped recording of Clark outside his home dressed in only his underwear, chanting in tribal fashion and banging loudly on what Marcum later said was a grill. The incident, which according to the date and time on the recording and testimony from two female students of Betsy Layne High School who were visiting Sparks’ home on the night of the occurrence, happened at just before 11 p.m.
“I told him (Sparks) to bring me proof, and that’s just what he did,” Marcum said after the jury returned their verdict.
The videotape was played for the jury during trial and was in addition to testimony from the two Betsy Layne teens offered from the commonwealth.
Clark’s court-appointed attorney, Mike Studebaker, did not call witnesses during the trial, but argued in closing statements that enough proof had not been established by the prosecution’s part to convict Clark.
Studebaker argued that Clark was on his own property and had not intended to cause “alarm or affront” to anyone, as stipulated in the charges.
But the evidence was too much for the six jurors, who returned unanimous guilty verdicts on both charges, something Clark could have avoided had he accepted a previous plea offer from the commonwealth.
Marcum said after the trial that the commonwealth had offered Clark 30 days in jail on the charges, adding that the family might have even settled for a week or two in jail, but that Clark had turned down the offer.
“The commonwealth’s offer wasn’t satisfactory to Mr. Clark,” Studebaker said just before the trial began Monday morning.
Before jurors had been selected, Marcum, who said the fact that Clark had urinated in front of two females was “not something neighbors in Eastern Kentucky do”, confirmed that a prior offer had been made to Clark, but said Sparks and his family deserved relief in the situation.
“We offered him a few days in jail and he didn’t want to do it,” Marcum said. “But people have a right to live in peace, and he (Clark) is too old to spank.”
Following the jury’s verdict, District Judge Eric Hall sentenced Clark to a maximum 90 days in jail on the charge of indecent exposure and a maximum fine on that charge of $250, while adding another 10 days for the disorderly conduct charge with a maximum fine of $250, for a total of $500 in fines and 100 days in jail.