Maggio pleads guilty to bribery

Federal case file cites 2 abettors

Judicial immunity prohibits a lawsuit against ousted Judge Michael Maggio over his handling of a negligence suit involving the death of a nursing-home patient, a judge ruled Friday.
Judicial immunity prohibits a lawsuit against ousted Judge Michael Maggio over his handling of a negligence suit involving the death of a nursing-home patient, a judge ruled Friday.

Ousted Circuit Judge Michael Maggio pleaded guilty Friday to a felony bribery charge for lowering a Faulkner County jury's $5.2 million award in a negligence lawsuit to $1 million in exchange for thousands of dollars from a nursing-home owner, according to the federal plea agreement.

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Little Rock attorney Chris Stewart has said he created political action committees for former state Sen. Gilbert Baker’s (shown) political consulting company.

Maggio, 53, could face a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000.

U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, who heard Maggio's plea, has not set a sentencing date. Negotiated pleas sometimes result in less-severe sentences in exchange for a defendant's cooperation and information.

Maggio implicates at least two other people, identified as Individual A and Individual B in the plea agreement, which resulted from Maggio's handling of a lawsuit filed by the family of nursing-home patient Martha Bull.

Bull died in 2008 at Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, which is owned by Fort Smith businessman Michael Morton.

The plea agreement, which says Maggio had attempted to delete incriminating text messages, states that Individual A "was a stockholder in numerous nursing homes" and owned the facility that was sued.

The U.S. attorney's office on Friday described Individual B as a fundraiser for Maggio's campaign and says that person established the political action committees through which at least $12,950 of the nursing-home owner's campaign donations were given to Maggio.

Little Rock attorney Chris Stewart has said he created political action committees for former state Sen. Gilbert Baker's political consulting company but eventually terminated seven PACs. Lobbyist Bruce Hawkins had one PAC re-registered because his attorney said it didn't have anything to do with the others, even though it donated to the Maggio campaign.

Morton stated under oath last year that he mailed thousands of dollars in checks to Baker's Conway home as contributions to eight PACS in response to a fax from Baker that listed monetary sums beside each PAC's name. Morton also said he thought the money was intended for Maggio's since-halted campaign for the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

All but one of the PACs, funded almost exclusively by Morton, later donated to Maggio's campaign.

Baker, a Republican, has acknowledged helping raise money for Maggio's campaign but has denied that the PACs were solely for Maggio.

The FBI has been investigating the PAC contributions, which Morton made in a series of checks dated July 8, 2013. The same day, Maggio heard arguments on whether to reduce the circuit court jury's $5.2 million judgment against the nursing home where Bull died in 2008. Two days later, Maggio cut the sum to $1 million.

Baker resigned from his executive job at the University of Central Arkansas in April after he was linked to the PACs and after UCA returned a $100,000 donation that he had arranged from Morton. Baker recently requested and was granted an unpaid leave of absence from his current teaching job at UCA.

Baker's attorney, Bud Cummins, said they would have no comment Friday.

Neither Morton nor three of his attorneys returned phone messages seeking comment Friday.

Maggio and one of his attorneys, Lauren Hamilton, also did not return requests for comment.

Maggio withdrew from the appeals court race shortly after the Blue Hog Report blog revealed in March contentious comments he made online about women, sex, race and a legally confidential adoption case.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Maggio removed from office Sept. 11, months after it had stripped him of all cases and after allegations about the campaign contributions surfaced. The court acted after the Arkansas Judicial and Disability Commission recommended that Maggio not hear any more cases because of the online postings.

The bribery allegations in Maggio's plea agreement date back months before the Bull lawsuit went to trial.

The plea agreement says Maggio "corruptly" accepted and agreed to accept campaign contributions between February 2013 and about mid-2014 in exchange, "at least in part," for reducing the $5.2 million judgment.

The agreement says that in early 2013, Individual B and others asked Maggio to run for the appeals court, and that in May, Maggio was told he'd need to raise more than $100,000 for a successful campaign.

Individual B told Maggio that Maggio would be responsible for smaller donations, totaling about $25,000 to $50,000, and Individual B would raise the remaining money from "industry types," including nursing homes, the agreement says.

As of Feb. 22, 2013, court records show, Morton was still a defendant in the Bull family's lawsuit in addition to his nursing home and others. At some point, Maggio dismissed Morton as a defendant; the exact date was unclear Friday.

On the morning of May 16, 2013, several hours before the jury reached its verdict, the plea agreement says Individual B texted Maggio to say, "I have a LR lunch today with the nursing home folks. The topic will be judicial races. You are at the top of the list."

Morton has said he saw Baker and a Baker associate, Linda Leigh Flannigan, at Brave New Restaurant in Little Rock while Maggio was presiding over the case and that Baker asked him to support Maggio.

On June 20, 2013, Individual B sent Maggio a text that said, in part, "Well your first 50K is on the way," the agreement says. The agreement adds, "Maggio understood that this $50,000 included financial support from Individual A."

On June 27, 2013, Maggio announced his appeals-court candidacy.

It was unclear Friday whether Maggio received more than the $12,950 in PAC campaign money from Morton.

The plea agreement says Individual B later texted Maggio and "reminded Maggio that he would receive campaign financial support if he made the 'tough calls' while on the bench."

"Maggio understood that Individual B was advising Maggio that, in exchange for Maggio's ruling in favor of Individual A and Company A, Individual A would provide campaign donations to Maggio," it adds.

According to the document, Maggio does not challenge that the U.S. attorney's office could show that on or about July 8, 2013, Individual A wrote checks totaling $24,000 to eight PACs, intending that all of the money would go to Maggio's campaign.

The document also says Maggio stipulates that records obtained from his cellphone and the phones of the two other individuals would show a total of 22 texts or calls, with four of them taking place on May 16, 2013, the day of the verdict; 11 on June 17, 2013, the day the nursing home asked for a new trial or a reduced judgment; four on July 8, the day of the judgment-reduction hearing; and three on July 9, 2013.

The May 16 exchanges all took place early that evening, after the verdict was announced, with the first one at 6:22 p.m. from Maggio to Individual B and the next one minutes later from Individual A to Individual B. Individual B then texted Maggio, who minutes later texted him back.

"During this time period, Maggio's communications with Individual B were about the campaign or the litigation," the plea agreement says.

It says that in March, when the PAC contributions became publicly known, Maggio talked with "another person about deleting text messages between Maggio and Individual B." That person, it says, also suggested Maggio delete texts between Maggio and him or herself, and Maggio then did so.

Attorney Thomas Buchanan, who represents the Bull family, said the plea agreement "speaks for itself" but added, "Today wasn't a good day for Gilbert Baker and Michael Morton and Michael Maggio."

"Unfortunately this case has become something that it shouldn't have been," he said of the Bull lawsuit.

"If justice had prevailed and all of the appropriate rules of law followed, this case would have been over long ago," he added. "But, unfortunately, there are folks who try to make rules and influence rules through their own means. ... I hope that everyone including judges, millionaires, billionaires, whoever they may be, will decide that our system of justice is bigger than they are."

Buchanan said legislative and judicial candidates should not continue to accept campaign contributions from Morton and insisted, "They need to return what they have [already received] because if you think that there's not something expected in return, think again."

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris and others announced the plea agreement in a news release shortly after the plea hearing ended at 11:55 a.m.

Cherith Beck, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock, said U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer had recused from the case. Asked why Thyer did so, she replied in an email, "No comment."

The release said Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters and trial attorney Edward P. Sullivan of the Criminal Division's Public Integrity Section prosecuted the case.

Maggio is free on his own recognizance. Conditions of his release include that he gets medical or psychiatric treatment "as determined by probation," court records show.

A section on 01/10/2015

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