Photo: Kristopher Drzka
A man who pled no contest in 2017 to charges of having inappropriate sexual contact with a young girl was back in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday facing new charges and the revocation of his sentence in the older case.
Twenty-six-year-old Kristopher Drzka of rural Mountain Home was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to filing a false report with law enforcement and doing so while on probation in the older case.
A petition to revoke his suspended sentence was filed late last month. The allegations in the petition include the filing of the false report in which Drzka claimed he had been the victim of a sexual assault in a shower at the Baxter County jail.
A written statement filled out by Drzka detailed his version of the events of Aug. 23.
During a later interview, Drzka was confronted with the fact that a review of footage from video surveillance cameras showed no such assault took place.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Drzka admitted he had made the story up as retaliation “for what he believed is a ‘hit’ that has been put out on him by other inmates.”
The filing a false report charge was filed after Drzka’s confession.
In the original case, the young female victim said that in the summer months of 2015, when she was 14-years-old, she had been at a local park with a friend and a person she did not know, later identified as the then 19-year-old Drzka.
The victim told investigators her friend had left around dusk and she agreed to wait with Drzka until someone came to pick him up.
During the wait, the victim said Drzka became aggressive, pinned her against a gazebo and had inappropriate sexual contact with her.
She said she bit him several times in the struggle and he finally let her go and she ran home.
In an interview with Drzka, he told investigators he had been in the park with his cousin and after the relative left, he began “coming on” to the victim and that led to the inappropriate touching.
Drzka said the victim had bitten him three times — twice on the chest and once on the neck. He said the bite to the neck, “hurt enough” that he let the victim go.
At the time of the sentencing in the sexual assault case, 14th Judicial District Deputy Prosecutor Kerry Chism told the court the sentence Drzka was to receive had been discussed with the young girl’s parents and they were in agreement with the proposal.
Chism told the court that a psychological evaluation had shown Drzka fit to proceed in his case — but pointed out the evaluation also showed he functioned at a mental level lower than was age appropriate.
When he was sentenced in July 2017, the court ordered Drzka to have no contact with the victim or the victim’s family. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.
He is currently listed as a Level 3 offender. A Level 3 offender is classed as a person with a “relatively” high probability of re-offending.
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