The former Ripley Police Officer charged with sexually abusing a minor girl entered a plea of not guilty Friday morning in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Denver H. “Buddy” Thomas, who was indicted in February on one felony count of sexual abuse by a person in a position of trust for allegedly abusing a minor female during late 2008, appeared before Judge Thomas C. Evans, III, for arraignment proceedings Friday morning.

Thomas, accompanied by his attorney George Cosenza, formally pleaded not guilty to the charges at the hearing.

Following the plea, Cosenza made a motion that Thomas’ bond, which had been set at $20,000, be modified to allow Thomas to be released solely on personal recognizance. Cosenza said he had spoken to special prosecutor Fred Giggenbach, Jr., regarding the motion and said that Giggenbach was fine with that.

Judge Evans, however, disagreed saying that he believed the very serious nature of the charge required a bond amount to be set. Evans also noted that $20,000 is a relatively light bond amount and Thomas should not have much difficulty posting it. Given those reasons, Evans denied the bond reduction motion.

Evans had required that Thomas’ bond be posted prior to arraignment. Cosenza informed the court that, knowing he would make the bond reduction motion, he had advised Thomas not to post bond prior to the hearing. Given that advice from counsel, Cosenza asked that Judge Evans extend the period to allow Thomas to post bond. Evans consented, ordering Thomas to post bond by 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 10.

Following the hearing, Thomas began filling out bond paperwork with the Circuit Clerk’s office.
Evans set a trial date for the case of Tuesday, June 1. A pre-trial hearing date was also set for Thursday, May 6, at 3:00 p.m.

One other item of note in the case: it had initially been reported that Thomas’ case had been assigned to Judge David W. Nibert for trial. That was based on a computer-generated form listing those who had been indicted by the Grand Jury incorrectly listing Nibert as the assigned judge in the case.

According to courthouse staff, the computer system automatically assigns a judge to criminal cases for the purposes of filing the case in the system, however, judge assignments are not set by this system, but rather by the judge when indictments are answered by the defendants.