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FORT SMITH — A former Fort Smith physician has been sentenced to 110 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a minor.
Ladaryl M. Lankford, 47, of Free Ferry Landing in Fort Smith pleaded guilty to a series of serious felony charges involving the abuse of a minor, according to a news release issued Thursday by the Fort Smith Police Department.
The plea included five counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of introducing a controlled substance into the body of another for a sex offense.
For these specific crimes, the sentences have been ordered to run consecutively — meaning they will be served one after the other — resulting in a total term of 110 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections, the release states.
Additionally, the defendant received a 15-year suspended imposition of sentence regarding the controlled substance charge, which serves as a probationary period following the prison term.
Lankford also pleaded guilty to possession of child sexual abuse material and video voyeurism, according to the release. While these charges carried sentences of 20 years and six years respectively, the court ordered them to run concurrently with the other sentences, meaning they will be served at the same time as the 110-year term and do not add additional time to the total sentence.
Lankford was arrested by Fort Smith police in April following a monthlong investigation, the release states.
Lankford pleaded not guilty in April to some of those charges, which were amended Wednesday to add four of the sexual assault counts and drop a previous rape charge, court documents show.
Lankford had practiced medicine in Fort Smith and Springdale, online records show.
His office is listed as “permanently closed” on Google. He is listed on Healthgrades.com as a hospitalist in Fort Smith and WebMD lists him as working in Springdale and specializing in internal medicine, family medicine and hospital medicine.
The Arkansas State Medical Board lists Lankford’s physician’s license as suspended.
Ladaryl Lankford
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An accuser reported the offenses linked to Lankford on March 30, according to the Fort Smith Police Department.
Detectives then worked to corroborate the information, leading to Lankford’s April 28 arrest and the charges leveled against him, police reported.
Investigators reported finding “thousands of video files” from hidden recording devices in a residence.
The repeated sexual offenses detailed in an arrest affidavit in the case involved multiple victims and occurred between Jan. 1, 2016, and March 30, 2025, according to a Police Department news release.
The accusers included a juvenile known to Lankford, police reported.
Lankford had sex with more than one victim “who was incapable of consent because (the person) was physically helpless,” the Fort Smith Police Department arrest affidavit states.
In addition, Lankford had child sexual abuse materials and caused a controlled substance “to be ingested or inhaled or otherwise introduced into the human body of another person with the purpose to commit any felony offense” involving sexual conduct possibly involving a child, according to the affidavit.
The physician used a camera or other recording device to secretly observe or videotape another person inside a residence when that person was “in a private area out of public view, has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and has not consented to the observation,” the affidavit states.
Conversations with witnesses led investigators to suspect Lankford had been placing hidden cameras in multiple rooms “for years,” the affidavit states.
The accusers and witnesses gave cameras, hard drives and computers to police, the affidavit states, and among the recordings were instances of Lankford sexually abusing the accuser while the person was “asleep/drugged.”
Some videos show Lankford exchanging pills from a pill bottle with some other capsules that appear identical, the affidavit claimed.
Prescription pill bottles were discovered at the residence that contain a controlled substance used to help a person go to sleep, according to the affidavit.
