An outgoing state legislator and former Harlem Globetrotter has accused a state prosecutor and the Arkansas State Police of "malicious" conduct against him and is seeking damages through the state Claims Commission.
Fred Smith filed a complaint with the Claims Commission last week, asserting that his 2009 arrest and subsequent conviction involving theft from a school district should have been a civil matter.
Smith, of Crawfordsville, was first elected as a Democrat in 2010, a year after he was charged with felony theft of property after accepting mislaid money from the Dermott School District.
Smith was found guilty of the felony in Chicot County Circuit Court in January 2011, received a one-year suspended sentence and promptly resigned from the state House of Representatives.
The conviction was vacated in March 2012, after Smith made restitution to the school district but not before the March 1 filing date for the Democratic Party primary, in which the state party sought and eventually won in an effort to bar Smith from the ballot.
Smith went on to win a legislative seat in the district in 2012 as a member of the state's Green Party, and he is to end his role as a legislator at the end of the year.
Police and prosecutors acted maliciously, Smith said, and the fallout, which prompted him to resign from the Legislature, put undue stress on his family and tarnished his reputation.
"Falsifying documents, falsifying warrants -- this is stuff that we, as legislators, need to stand up against. If we don't, then people will think that legislators haven't been doing their job."
When asked why he filed the complaint now, nearly five years after his initial arrest, Smith said the arrest, his trial and subsequent resignation ate into his life and the lives of those closest to him.
With his affairs in order, Smith said he's now looking forward to setting the record straight.
Thomas Deen, the prosecuting attorney responsible for Smith's prosecution, declined to comment on Smith's allegations last week. He submitted a letter to the Arkansas attorney general's office Wednesday asking that the office represent him in the matter.
"As best as can be determined from Fred Smith's complaint, his case is based primarily on an allegation of wrongful arrest and prosecution," Deen wrote in the letter. "Smith's complaint is frivolous. He was lawfully arrested pursuant to a valid arrest warrant and was successfully prosecuted in good faith."
Smith contends that he was arrested in Mississippi on the theft warrant and was "kidnapped" for two days while being held in Lake Village because the warrant signed off on by the prosecutor had been wrongly entered into the National Criminal Information Center by an Arkansas State Police investigator.
Smith said the dispute with the school district should have been treated as a civil manner and that there was no need to involve state police.
Smith argued that his arrest was fraudulent and that all involved, including Deen, violated due process and did so in act of "racial discrimination."
"[Smith] tried to mitigate his damage through re-applying for District 50 State Representative and to repair his reputation, but has not succeed[ed] to the continued disgracing of the media and acts done by the State of Arkansas," his complaint stated.
Deen's office denied any racial component in Smith's arrest and said the investigation, prompted by a state audit that revealed that the school district had paid Smith's charity group twice for the same work, was concerned with nothing "outside the evidence in the case."
State police officials confirmed that they received the complaint but have declined to comment.
Like Deen, they are asking that the attorney general's office represent them in the complaint.
Smith's recent complaint isn't the first dealing he has had with the state Claims Commission.
Smith was accused of being ineligible to hold office in Arkansas in a complaint filed with the commission that said he was actually a resident of Mississippi.
The commission eventually voted unanimously in favor of Smith, and its recommendation to seat the former Globetrotter was followed by a 89-1 vote by the state House of Representatives.
Metro on 09/21/2014