LITTLE ROCK — A Helena-West Helena drug dealer received a five year sentence in federal court Friday for the role he played in a multi-state drug trafficking ring that funneled hundreds of pounds of cocaine into the Arkansas Delta.
Jarvis Washington, 25, has been on home detention since June, after violating the conditions of his release in December 2011.
Washington, along with 70 other people - five of them police officers - were indicted in the fall of 2011. Those indictments stemmed from an FBI-led investigation into public corruption and drug trafficking in the state’s impoverished Delta.
Jarvis pleaded guilty in September to purchasing a little more than a pound of cocaine from a Lee County dealer in 2011. He then sold the illegal substance to customers in Helena-West Helena.
Wiretaps recorded calls during which Washington negotiated drug deals. He also admitted to setting up deals in person.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge James M. Moody said he agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters and defense attorney Marjorie Rogers that 60 months was an adequate sentence.
In doing so, the judge noted that while Washington’s criminal history wasn’t “insignificant,” it also wasn’t “overwhelming.”
Court records in Phillips County show that Washington picked up a terroristic-act charge in 2007 after he and another man were accused of shooting at a woman in her car.
When Washington failed to show up in circuit court to address that charge, he also garnered a failure-to-appear warrant.
That warrant was never served, however, because of former Phillips County Sheriff Ronnie White’s practice of not entering fugitive warrants into a statewide crime database.
The unserved warrant allowed Washington to evade arrest in that case - despite being arrested or appearing in district court six times - until he was nabbed in the FBI sting.
After that arrest, a Helena-West Helena public defender took up the state’s terroristic act case, arguing that Washington’s right to a speedy trial had been violated.
In response, Phillips County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Todd Murray dropped the charge.
Once Washington is released from federal prison, he will remain on supervised release for four years, Moody said at Friday’s hearing.
Asked if he wanted to speak, Washington told the judge that he wanted to apologize to the United States for his crime.
As U.S. marshals led him from the courtroom, Washington flashed the peace sign to numerous family members who attended his hearing. They waved in return.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/16/2013