Robinson won't serve jail time or pay fine in bankruptcy case

By The Associated Press

Photo by Steve Keesee

Tommy Robinson exits the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in Little Rock in December 2007..

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Former Arkansas congressman Tommy Robinson will not have to spend 60 days in jail or pay a $5,000 fine levied as part of a citation for criminal contempt of court stemming from his bankruptcy case, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

However, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at St. Louis said the U.S. District Court at Little Rock was correct in other aspects of its ruling, including refusing to free them from the bankruptcy case.

Robinson and his wife had sought to reverse a judge's denial of their request to be freed from bankruptcy court supervision, but the appeals court upheld the lower court's actions. The appeals court also said that attorney's fees and costs, plus other expenses that Robinson was ordered to pay, were appropriate. The attorneys' fees exceed $20,000, and costs of an aborted auction ordered by a bankruptcy judge were $110,000.

But the appeals court said the order that the criminal contempt citation accused Robinson of violating "was neither sufficiently specific to be enforceable, nor clear and unambiguous."

The order from U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James G. Mixon had barred Robinson from taking "any actions to interfere in any way with" the involuntary bankruptcy proceedings in which he and his wife were involved.

After that order was issued, the Robinsons filed a suit in state court aimed at thwarting an auction ordered by Mixon of a duck-hunting lodge in which Robinson was once a partner.

Mixon said the lawsuit - filed one day before the auction was scheduled in December 2006 - "was a deliberate attempt" to prevent the auction. Robinson and his lawyer, Roy C. "Bill" Lewellen of Marianna, spent a night in jail on a civil contempt citation that was lifted when they asked the state court to dismiss the suit.

But Mixon recommended to the U.S. District Court at Little Rock that Robinson be cited for criminal contempt, and that court did so. That citation was lifted Tuesday.

The appeals court, however, rejected the Robinsons' attempt to be freed from the bankruptcy case, agreeing with Mixon that "the Robinsons each acted knowingly and fraudulently in providing inaccurate information on their bankruptcy schedules."

Robinson was elected to Congress as a Democrat in 1984 from central Arkansas' 2nd District. He switched parties to run for governor as a Republican in 1990, losing to Sheffield Nelson in the Republican primary. Nelson eventually was defeated by then-Gov. Bill Clinton.

Before his election to Congress, Robinson attracted statewide attention as Pulaski County sheriff, once chaining convicted prisoners to a fence at a prison unit in Pine Bluff. Robinson said that his jail had no room for them and that the state prison system refused to accept them.

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