LITTLE ROCK — A federal judge ordered a five-year prison sentence Tuesday for a Helena-West Helena man who admitted to trafficking pounds of marijuana and possessing an AK-47 rifle to protect his illicit drugs and drug proceeds.
Michael Wayne Webb, 34, was arrested in October 2011 during a federal sting known as Operation Delta Blues, which stemmed from a fiveyear investigation into drug trafficking and public corruption in the Arkansas Delta.
During a hearing Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Little Rock, U.S. District Judge James M. Moody accepted a plea agreement that Webb entered into with federal prosecutors in September.
By accepting the deal, Moody was bound by a recommended prison sentence of five years followed by three years of supervised release.
“I’ve now had a chance to read the pre-sentence report, and I’m satisfied that that is a fair sentence,” Moody told Webb.
The judge noted the many letters submitted on Webb’s behalf before Tuesday’s sentencing.
“I read them all, I’ll tell you,” Moody assured Webb and his parents, who sat behind their son in the courtroom.
Jenny Webb, Michael’s mother, clutched two of the letters throughout the hearing.
The writings were from Webb’s oldest children.
Please let my daddy come home because I need him, Webb’s 7-year-old son had written.
Six-year-old Kelsey offered a similar plea: Please help God to send my daddy home to me.
But while Moody read these and other letters, he reminded the Webb family that he was bound by the negotiated plea agreement.
In his plea, Webb admitted that he obtained marijuana by the pound, which he then broke into smaller amounts for redistribution to customers.
He also admitted that he kept an AK-47 rifle to protect his drugs and profits.
Asked if he had anything to say at Tuesday’s hearing, Webb stood and addressed Moody.
“I want to apologize to you, your Honor, to the court, to the DA, to my family, to my kids. ... Please forgive me. Thank you for your time.”
In the event that there are future proceedings involving Webb, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters noted that, if Webb’s plea agreement hadn’t included a binding prison sentence, the U.S. Probation and Pretrial Services office would have recommended an “upward departure” from the sentencing range calculated using federal guidelines.
Under those guidelines, the probation office can recommend that a judge impose a longer prison sentence if “reliable information indicates that the defendant’s criminal history category substantially underrepresents the seriousness of the defendant’s criminal history or the likelihood that the defendant will commit other crimes.”
One basis for recommending a sentence above the guidelines can be “prior similar adult criminal conduct not resulting in a criminal conviction,” according to the sentencing guidelines.
Prosecutors have noted previously that between 1999 and 2007, Webb was a defendant in seven criminal cases, including cases involving drug possession, battery, kidnapping and assault.
At Webb’s detention hearing last fall, Peters cited these cases in her argument that Webb not be released on bond.
She also played a recording of a wire-tapped phone conversation in which Webb bragged, “My daddy’s paid over a quarter-million dollars to keep me out of jail.”
In another recording, Webb talked about how his father had also managed to get rid of a criminal case against his sister.
All of the cases were later dropped by prosecutors.
Webb’s father, 64-year-old Wayne Webb, pleaded guilty in August to a federal moneylaundering charge not related to his son’s case and is awaiting sentencing.
As U.S. marshals prepared to take Michael Webb into custody, his mother called out softly, “We love you, Michael.”
Webb nodded in response as he was led out of the courtroom.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/05/2012