Parole delayed for child rapist Wayne Poland

Editor’s note: This article contains graphic content previously reported in news accounts of a 2003 child rape case.

A notorious child rapist will have to wait another two years before he’s again eligible for parole after a decision from the Arkansas Post-Prison Transfer Board.

Wayne Frederick Poland, 81, will remain incarcerated at the Ouachita River Correctional Unit in Malvern, where he’s serving a 25-year sentence for the rapes of two juveniles. Prior to the decision he was eligible for release on Nov. 19, 2024, according to online records of inmates held within the state’s Department of Corrections.

Poland was 60 at the time the investigation came to light. He, along with Jacqueline Velcoff, the mother of the two victims, was arrested in 2003 after an investigation by local authorities revealed they had sexually assaulted a young teenage boy and girl over the course of about three years in Arkadelphia and Caddo Valley.

Poland paid Velcoff to have sex with both her and the children, sometimes engaging in threesomes. Prior to his arrest Poland had been a contract employee as a nurse anesthetist at Baptist Health Medical Center-Arkadelphia.

Charged with 40 counts of rape and 20 counts of possession of child pornography, Poland posted a $500,000 bond on the same day he was arrested, then failed to appear for trial about a year after the allegations were brought to light. He would remain a fugitive for three years until his 2007 capture in Tanner, Alabama, where he was living in an RV park. It was there he had assumed a pseudonym, Michael Little, while being on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives List.

Velcoff, meanwhile, was tried in 2005 and found guilty of 20 counts of rape. She was released from prison in 2019 after serving a 14-year sentence.

Following extradition back to Arkadelphia, Poland was held without bond in Clark County until his trial in 2009. Just ahead of his trial date he entered a guilty plea to two counts of rape, child porn possession and failure to appear.

The case was filed by then-Prosecutor Henry Morgan. Notified of Poland’s parole eligibility, current 9th East Prosecutor Dan Turner submitted an objection to the parole board, arguing that Poland’s “use of financial means and status to prey on young children, the evidence of numerous images of downloaded child pornography, his flight to avoid prosecution, and his selfish and inappropriate efforts to contact his victim years after the offense and during his incarceration are all sufficient factors to mitigate against his release.”