Sentencing delayed for ex-officer

Prosecutor cites inconsistent testimony in drug-escort case

A former Little Rock police officer who admitted escorting a truckload of marijuana across the city last year saw his sentencing hearing interrupted Friday when a federal prosecutor took exception to statements he told the judge and threatened him with a possible perjury charge.

Mark Anthony Jones, 46, negotiated a guilty plea on June 28 to a single charge of attempting to aid and abet the possession of 1,000 pounds of marijuana with the intent to distribute it, in exchange for the dismissal of six other charges he faced alongside his half-brother, Randall Tremayn Robinson, 37, also a former Little Rock police officer.

ADVERTISEMENT

More headlines

Both officers were the subject of an FBI “sting” operation on March 22, 2012,while they were on duty and in uniform. A confidential informant for the FBI testified that he arranged with Jones to provide a “police escort” for two vans together carrying a half-ton of marijuana to storage facilities across town in exchange for $5,000. The informant said Jones believed that the shipment had just arrived on a tractor-trailer rig from Los Angeles, when in fact a rig that Jones saw being unloaded was a prop in the FBI sting.

According to evidence presented at Jones’ plea hearing in late June and at Robinson’s trial in July, boxes that contained a small amount of marijuana but were mostly empty were unloaded into two vans. Jones and Robinson, in separate marked patrol cars, each followed one of the vans from south Little Rock to storage facilities in the northern part of the city as FBI agents kept them under land and aerial surveillance.

Robinson was convicted by a federal jury of one charge unrelated to the escort, but jurors deadlocked on three charges related to it. A retrial on those charges is set to begin March 17.

At Jones’ sentencing hearing Friday morning, prosecutors and defense attorney Charles D. Hancock of Little Rock clashed as to what extent Jones “cooperated” with prosecutors after his guilty plea and how much credit he should be given as a result.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner complained to U.S. District Judge James Moody that although Jones pleaded guilty, then willingly talked to prosecutors and federal agents July 9 and took a lie-detector test July 10, his statements about how much he intended to pay, and did pay, his brother for assisting, and whether Robinson was aware at the time that his actions were illegal, were inconsistent, rendering Jones unreliable as a prosecution witness.

Gardner and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Harris also called FBI agent Mike Lowe to testify about whether Jones continued to accept responsibility for his actions after his guilty plea. Lowe cited inconsistencies that Jones made in statements to authorities during the July 9 meeting and in the polygraph examination a day later.

Lowe testified that in a meeting before Robinson’s trial, Jones said he hadn’t done anything wrong and that the FBI had “set him up.”

Jones testified Friday that what he meant was that he hadn’t done anything wrong before the day of the sting, to justify the sting operation.

“I admit to what I did, but I hadn’t done anything wrong for them to send this informant at me,” he said. He added that during his 26 years on the police force, he was a “model police officer” and “darn good at my job,” and that he never sent an informant to investigate someone who hadn’t committed any previous crimes.

Jones said he was ready to testify at Robinson’s trial, which Hancock said shows that he fully cooperated.

The judge agreed to give Jones two out of three possible credits for cooperation, agreeing with prosecutor recommendations that he not receive the third credit. In federal court, credits lower the penalty range recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

Moody, who also found that the gun Jones carried on duty was part of his uniform, and thus was used to carry out the offense, noted that Jones faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison under federal law and a guideline range of eight to 10 years.

Jones, who has also worked as a stand-up comedian, then took the stand again after three pastors testified to his otherwise good character. He said he agreed last year to escort the shipment at the informant’s request only because the informant owed him $6,000 from a comedy show that Jones had helped him set up but that had lost money after two comedians failed to show up.

“I wanted my money,” Jones told the judge. “All I wanted was my $6,000 that he owed me.”

He acknowledged, “I made a bad judgment,” in agreeing to to escort a drug shipment, but, “If they hadn’t thrown this informant at me, I wouldn’t have done nothing.”

After a short recess, Gardner asked that the sentencing hearing be concluded on another date so that she could review transcripts of Jones’ earlier statements about how he met the informant and how the matter of providing an escort for a drug shipment came up, and compare them with his testimony on Friday.

Moody scheduled the resumption of the sentencing hearing for 9 a.m. Wednesday.

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/26/2013

Upcoming Events