LR man gets time in drug case

He’s also accused of carrying handgun to PTA meeting

A Little Rock man awaiting trial on state charges over accusations that he took a loaded gun to Pulaski Heights Elementary School last year was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months in prison in a federal drug case.

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Zyphria Derrick Watts, 40, pleaded guilty June 19 to a charge of conspiracy to possess between 44 and 88 pounds of marijuana with the intent to distribute it. In return, three other charges were dropped: conspiracy to distribute and to possess marijuana with the intent to distribute it from 2009 through April 2013, and two counts of using a communication device, a cellphone, to facilitate the sale of marijuana in January 2011.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon told Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller that Watts was selling marijuana from his vehicle while one of his children was in the back seat. Gordon didn't object to a sentence within the penalty range recommended by federal sentencing guidelines -- 18 to 24 months -- but said he would have been justified in seeking an upward variance from the sentence range "because of the violence in his past."

Defense attorney Rick Holiman of Little Rock asked the judge to consider only the federal offense, noting that despite a string of arrests dating back several years, Watts has no felony convictions and just one misdemeanor conviction, for possessing marijuana, in the past 10 years.

Watts generated news coverage Nov. 7, 2013, when Little Rock police arrested him on the campus shared by Pulaski Heights Elementary and Middle schools, where he was attending a Parent Teacher Association gathering, when someone noticed a .40-caliber handgun in the waistband of his coveralls and alerted a security guard.

In a sentencing memorandum, Holiman said that Watts, who has three grade-school children and is "very actively involved in the PTA" with the children's mother, had simply forgotten to take off the coveralls he had worn all weekend while trapping hogs in south Arkansas. Holiman said Watts returned home from his trip earlier that morning, then helped jump-start a truck shortly before the school function and forgot to remove the gun before heading to the school.

After his arrest on a charge of possessing a handgun on school property, which is pending before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Barry Sims, Watts was served with the federal indictment, which had been handed up in April 2013. He was the last of 12 people to be arrested in the case.

Holiman urged Miller to sentence Watts below the penalty range recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, arguing that the range was based on Watts' traffic offenses and "over-represents the seriousness" of his criminal record.

Holiman conceded that Watts "has a lengthy list of arrests and 'near misses,'" in addition to the traffic offenses.

Asked for his input, Gordon told the judge, "The way I see it, Mr. Watts has been getting away with things for quite a while, and it's finally caught up with him. ... He's only got himself to blame."

The prosecutor added, "I can't tell you how many arrests there are for him beating people up, pulling guns on them, shooting at them. ... That's who he is, and for some reason, the people involved won't stand up for themselves."

Citing a pre-sentence report that isn't publicly available, Miller told Watts, "I've seen your history. You've been whipping on folks for years."

He noted that four women and one man had filed complaints of domestic abuse against Watts, but in each situation, "the case just goes away."

The judge said he was concerned about Watts' history of violence but that he wouldn't increase his punishment in the federal case as a result.

He ordered Watts to participate in mental health counseling with an emphasis on domestic violence and anger management after he reports to prison Jan. 16. He also imposed two years' probation, with continued mental health counseling, after Watts' release.

Watts was allowed to remain free until his prison term begins.

Miller also sentenced several other defendants in the federal drug case Wednesday.

On Dec. 1, he sentenced the lead defendant, Troy Dion Allen, to the maximum five years in prison, followed by four years' supervised release, for his July guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to distribute about 300 pounds of marijuana.

FBI officials said Allen had ties to a larger drug trafficking operation involving the Mexican Gulf cartel that resulted in the May 2013 indictment of numerous people.

Metro on 12/18/2014

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