photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured in March of 2022. The center houses the Douglas County District Court and other county services.

A Lawrence man who says he has severe memory problems because of a brain injury was granted probation on Friday in a case where he was originally charged with exposing himself to a child.

The man, Eric L. Collins, 45, was originally charged with one felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior, but on Friday he instead pleaded no contest to one count of misdemeanor criminal restraint as part of a plea agreement with the state.

According to charging documents, Collins is accused of exposing himself to a 9-year-old girl on Nov. 11, 2022. He was arrested in July of 2023 and had been free on a $5,000 bond.

Throughout Friday’s hearing in Douglas County District Court, Collins and his attorney, Dakota Loomis, regularly referred to a traumatic brain injury that Collins suffered in 1999. They said the injury left him disabled; that he was on several medications to manage his pain; and that his memory has been impaired since the injury.

Judge Sally Pokorny asked whether Collins remembered signing the plea agreement and whether he understood what he was agreeing to.

“I can’t remember what happened this morning, let alone what was discussed days ago,” Collins said.

Loomis said that earlier this week he went over the plea with Collins and that he was confident Collins understood the process at the time that he signed the agreement.

The plea agreement recommends a sentence of 12 months of probation, which Collins said he could remember. He also said he remembered that he was not to have any contact with the girl or her mother.

Pokorny reread the criminal restraint charge to Collins and explained he was waiving his right to trial. Collins said that he agreed, adding that his disability would make it difficult for him to testify coherently if the case went to trial.

“I wouldn’t wish this disability on anybody,” Collins said.

Loomis asked Pokorny to follow the plea agreement’s recommended sentence and to give Collins unsupervised probation. He said that the girl’s family had moved away from the apartment complex where the incident occurred, and that Collins already meets with a case manager three times a week because of his disability.

Pokorny said that she understood Collins’ condition and that he had a case manager, but that she would still be requiring Collins to meet regularly with a probation officer. She sentenced Collins to 12 months in jail and then suspended that to six months of supervised probation.