The trial of former state Treasurer Martha Shoffner on 14 federal extortion and bribery charges was delayed Monday after a winter storm blew through the state a day earlier.
Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday morning.
The jury pool includes residents from an 11-county region - Pulaski, Saline, Lonoke, Prairie, White, Faulkner, Perry, Conway, Van Buren, Pope and Yell counties. Jackson County, where Shoffner lives in Newport, wasn’t included in the pool.
The U.S. District Court in Little Rock was closed Monday after a winter storm Sunday made many roads in the region impassible.
The U.S. attorney’s office said in an email Monday evening that the court had scheduled a pretrial hearing for today at 3 p.m. Jury selection will begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Shoffner is accused of accepting $36,000 from an unnamed bond broker in exchange for steering state business his way.
She faces a separate trial March 31 on mail-fraud charges stemming from allegations that she misspent campaign funds.
Information for this article was contributed by Linda Satter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 03/04/2014