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Foster Parent Arrested On Charges
Of Crimes Against Children
March 8, 2007
By James Bowie
 Bella
Vista police are searching for parents or caregivers of children
left in the care of a Bella Vista man arrested Wednesday on charges
he sexually assaulted children and videotaped children in sex acts.
Brian J. Bergthold, 45, of 2 Ealing
Circle in Bella Vista was a foster parent for about two years and
housed about 30 boys between ages 9 and 17, said Bella Vista
Detective Barb Shrum.
"We've got to get hold of all these
parents," Shrum said. "We have to notify the parents."
Federal authorities are also
investigating, said Benton County Prosecutor Van Stone.
Bergthold turned himself in to the
Benton County jail on the advice of his attorney, Drew Miller, about
11 a.m. Wednesday, police said.
Prosecutors asked for a $75,000
bond, but Benton County Circuit Judge Jay Finch set the amount at
$50,000 and ordered Bergthold to have no contact with minors. He was
still being held at the jail late Wednesday.
Police began investigating
Bergthold on Feb. 9 after a foster child's complaint, which led to a
search warrant, more interviews and ultimately to Wednesday's
arrest, said Shrum.
Police were investigating the
allegations during the month that passed between the Feb. 9 report
and Bergthold's arrest, Shrum said.
Detectives have interviewed four or
five children previously in Bergthold's care, Shrum said. She
wouldn't to say how many of those children said they suffered abuse.
Shrum said she doesn't know how
many children may need to be interviewed. "There were many other
children in that home," she said.
Police conducted two searches of
Bergthold's home Feb. 16 and 19, and confiscated several items,
including computers and a mini-videocassette tape. The tape showed a
teenage boy performing a sexual act and being sexually assaulted by
Bergthold, Shrum said.
"We've had one child that has
already come forward with what we've seen on videotape," Shrum said.
Shrum said the two children
Bergthold was fostering at the time were removed from the home Feb.
16.
A probable cause affidavit focused
on an interview with a teenage boy in Bergthold's care from Feb. 7
to March 22, 2006. The interview led to a warrant Bentonville
District Judge John Skaggs signed Tuesday.
The boy said in a Feb. 26 interview
at Benton County Children's Advocacy Center in Rogers that Bergthold
offered him and other children alcohol.
The boy told investigators
Bergthold spiked the children's hot chocolate with Kahlua one
evening, the affidavit said.
After the other boys were asleep,
Bergthold "tried to con me into doing stuff," the boy said. They
talked about the Bible saying homosexuality is wrong and that
Bergthold was a Christian, the boy said.
The boy said Bergthold looked up a
Web site with nude women on it, set up a camcorder in his office and
then filmed the boy masturbating, the affidavit said. A videotape
police seized showed Bergthold rubbing the boy's genitals.
The boy told interviewers he felt
emotionally and physically abused, the affidavit stated.
Bergthold was single but qualified
as a foster parent, said Julie Munsell, spokesman for the Department
of Health and Human Services. He passed a criminal background check,
a central registry check for child abuse and an FBI background
check, she said. The agency conducts new checks each year and holds
in-home meetings between social workers and the foster children, she
said.
Single foster parents can house up
to five children of either sex, but typically the children are the
same sex as the parent, Munsell said. It's common for a foster
parent to house as many children as Bergthold did in a two-year
period, because children often stay a short time, she said.
She gave slightly different figures
than police regarding Bergthold's time as a foster parent, saying he
had taken care of 28 children in just less than two years.
She also couldn't say why the two
children in Bergthold's care weren't removed from the home Feb. 9,
when the police investigation began.
"Anytime there's an allegation of
abuse, we remove the children from the home immediately," Munsell
said.
Bergthold's neighbors on Ealing
Circle said they would often see his foster children riding bikes
and skateboards in the street next to his home, but they rarely saw
Bergthold.
Stephanie Wolfard of 3 Ealing
Circle said she talked to Bergthold in passing and "he seemed really
nice." The foster children would sled down the hill next to her home
when it snowed, she said.
"He seemed like a fun dad," Wolfard
said. He wore his hat backwards and there were always kids coming
and going, she said.
Bergthold was featured in a summer
2006 newsletter about foster parenting published by the Midsouth
Development and Projects Division at the University of Arkansas at
Little Rock.
The newsletter said Bergthold moved
to Northwest Arkansas from Oregon a few years ago and felt a strong
desire to be helpful to those in need. "Last year God's prompting
for Brian to be a foster parent became overwhelming so he began
inquiring about the possibility."
The newsletter said Bergthold runs
a small business from his home, documentsonline.com, where he
creates technical materials, such as manuals, videos and Web content
for electronics manufacturers. The Web site doesn't identify
Bergthold.
May 2007 would have been
Bergthold's two-year anniversary as a foster parent, the newsletter
says.
Bergthold is to appear for
arraignment April 16 before Circuit Judge Tom Keith. He is charged
with sexual assault, engaging children in sexually explicit conduct
for visual or print medium and possession of medium depicting
sexually explicit conduct involving a child, Shrum said.
State Rep. Dawn Creekmoore,
D-Hensley, said Bergthold's arrest reaffirms her belief that single
parents should not foster children. She said she supports Senate
Bill 959 by Sen. Shawn Womack, R-Mountain Home, which would
reinstate a state ban on gay foster parents.
"Why would a single man want to
foster children?" Creekmoore asked. "It's very important to put
children that are in the foster system in a two-parent foster home.
"It's just a moral belief of mine
that a two-parent household can care emotionally for a child."
the morning news' robin mero
contributed to this report.
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