Gillean guilty; sentence in UCA thefts is 3 years

CLINTON - A Van Buren County jury convicted former University of Central Arkansas Chief of Staff Jack Gillean on six counts of commercial burglary Wednesday and sentenced him to three years in prison and to pay $35,000 in fines in a test-cheating scandal at the school.

Gillean, who was a deputy attorney general before he joined UCA and who was executive assistant for criminal justice when Jim Guy Tucker was governor, left the courthouse Wednesday in downtown Clinton with a black coat draped over his handcuffed wrists.

Circuit Judge Charles Clawson Jr. ruled that Gillean, 57, could remain free -pending an appeal - on the $17,500 bond that he posted after his arrest in October 2012. But Clawson said Gillean first had to be booked at the Faulkner County jail in Conway.

Clawson imposed the jury’s recommended sentence as Gillean stood solemnly beside his attorney, Tim Dudley, and a few feet in front of his twin sister and other relatives who were present throughout the trial.

During a recess after the judge announced the guilty verdicts, Gillean talked briefly with his family but later moved to the side of the small, sun-drenched courtroom and stood silently.

He said nothing to reporters other than, “Speak to my attorney.” Dudley declined to comment.

Gillean was charged after former student Cameron Stark said Gillean had willingly given him UCA-issued keys and a key card with the knowledge that Stark intended to use them to enter professors’ offices and steal tests. Stark is no longer a UCA student.

Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Troy Braswell praised the jury’s decisions.

“The community has spoken and said they’re not going to stand for this type of action,” he said.

Braswell said he also believes that the verdict will bring “closure” to UCA, which was just recovering from two unrelated scandals involving former presidents when Gillean was charged in October 2012.

Each count against Gillean was related to a different burglary. The first of the six counts drew the harshest sentence - a $10,000 fine and three years in prison, which means Gillean could be paroled after about six months. That count was related to the first time Gillean helped Stark steal tests, and it was the only time that the prosecution said Gillean was present for any of the UCA burglaries.

Stark, 25, testified under immunity earlier this week that he and Gillean were riding around on Feb. 11, 2011, and that he asked Gillean if he had a key to the Lewis Science Center, where Stark was scheduled to take a test.

The two then drove to the center, where Gillean used his master key to open the door, Stark testified. Gillean stood guard while Stark entered a professor’s office, found the test on the teacher’s computer and printed it out, Stark said.

On each of the five other commercial-burglary counts, the judge sentenced Gillean to 10 years of probation and a $5,000 fine. He ruled that the sentences would be served concurrently. It wasn’t immediately clear how Gillean could be on probation at the same time that he will be serving his prison sentence.

Gillean had faced a maximum of 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on each count.

The defense rested its case Wednesday morning without calling any witnesses.

Early on, the trial delved into details of Gillean’s personal life: Through Craigslist, he had met Ryan Scott, a man in his early 20s who twice became the divorced chief of staff’s live-in lover. Gillean partied with students and requested that UCA’s physical plant provide him a second master key after Stark told him the first master key alone would not unlock one professor’s office.

On Wednesday, a Conway police detective who examined Stark’s two cellphones read aloud several text messages in which it appeared that Stark was asking Gillean or someone using his phone for marijuana.

In one, the message from Stark’s phone asked if the recipient could “spare one bowl. I just want a little.”

The text from Gillean’s phone replied that the texter had “plenty of weed … that should be smoked.”

Another text from Stark’s phone to Gillean’s phone asked, “You have any extra green I can buy by chance?”

The person using Gillean’s phone replied, “I do, but I am in Memphis for the weekend.”

Under cross-examination by the defense, detective Brian Williams said he knew only that one of the phones was Gillean’s and could not rule out the possibility that someone else could have typed those messages.

“It could have been anybody,” even Scott, Dudley said.

Dudley told jurors it wasn’t fair of prosecutors to raise the drug issue at that point in the case.

“If they wanted [Gillean] punished for drugs, they should have charged him with it,” Dudley said.

Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland said later that the state did not charge Gillean with any drug offenses because, “Anytime the prosecution files drug charges, it’s necessary to have the actual drugs in evidence.

“We did not possess the drugs themselves,” Hiland said.

In pleading with jurors not to send Gillean to prison,Dudley said Gillean already had suffered enough.

He “lost his job. He lost his reputation. He has been publicly humiliated in this trial,” Dudley said.

Gillean’s sex life has been exposed, Dudley added. “He will never ever work again as a lawyer.

“The issue is how much punishment is enough, how much is too much.”

Dudley acknowledged that Gillean had made mistakes. After his divorce, he “started running with folks he shouldn’t have,” Dudley said. “He’s going to suffer anyway.”

Braswell countered that Gillean brought the problems on himself.

“He’s hanging out in the wrong company,” Braswell said. “You know who that wrong company is? College students. … They’re going to blame the kids.”

The defense had contended that Stark took Gillean’s keys without permission.

“What reason would Jack Gillean have to give Cameron Stark those keys?” Dudley asked. “What was Jack’s motive?”

Braswell responded that the state didn’t have to prove a motive, but said “how about someone who liked having control … having young students in his home … someone who was going to meet his boyfriend on Craigslist?”

In his administrative role, Gillean was supposed to help students, not be there “so they [could] go hang out with the chief of staff,” go drinking together and take their girlfriends to his apartment, Braswell said.

Gillean resigned from his job June 15, 2012, just days after Stark gave UCA police Gillean’s keys and said Gillean had given them to him. Stark was being questioned at the time about a drug theft on campus. No one was charged in that theft.

Braswell said the state plans to pursue two other charges against Gillean: one felony count of fraudulent insurance acts and one misdemeanor count of filing a false financial statement.

The test-cheating investigation prompted UCA to make changes in its security and financial-aid programs. As the third criminal case to involve current or former UCA officials, it also led to the creation of a fraud hotline.

The other two officials were former Presidents Lu Hardin and Allen Meadors. Hardin pleaded guilty to two federal felonies, and Meadors pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Neither of them served any jail or prison time.