Drug-case convict gets sentence cut
The latest noteworthy defendant to be spared some prison time as a result of a national edict that took effect Nov. 1 to reduce overincarceration of federal prisoners convicted of drug crimes is Ralph Francis DeLeo, a Massachusetts mobster convicted in Little Rock in 2011.
U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes recently reduced DeLeo's 144-month (12-year) sentence related to his involvement in a $50,000 cross-country cocaine delivery through Arkansas in 2008 to 124 months (10.3 years). Citing the U.S. Sentencing Commission's retroactive sentence reductions last year for most drug-trafficking crimes, based on the amount of the drug involved, DeLeo sought a reduction to 117 months.
DeLeo, now 72, who prosecutors said was part of the East Coast Colombo crime family, was convicted by a federal jury in Little Rock alongside George Wylie Thompson, now 69, of Cabot in a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy. Thompson, a former karate instructor and admitted bookmaker, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for arranging for a courier to use DeLeo's money to pick up more than 2 kilograms (about 4.4 pounds) of the drug in Los Angeles and transport it to DeLeo in Boston to resell.
DeLeo's past crimes included bank robberies, the armed robbery of a jewelry store, attempted kidnapping, murder, burglary, possessing a dangerous weapon and escape. In sentencing him in 2011, Holmes added a $10,000 fine to reflect the same amount of money that DeLeo was overheard on wiretaps offering to bribe someone in law enforcement to "lose" the evidence before trial.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis affirmed DeLeo's convictions in February 2012, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a further appeal. On Thursday, the 8th Circuit rejected a pro-se appeal from DeLeo, who is in a federal prison in Danbury, Conn.
At least 223 people convicted in the Eastern District of Arkansas since 2011 were among 46,000 people nationwide expected to have reduced sentences as a result of the national directive.
Final order seizes ex-officer's assets
U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson on Wednesday finalized an order surrendering to the U.S. government bank accounts, real estate, cash, guns and vehicles that once belonged to former Arkansas State Police Lt. Sedrick L. Reed.
Reed, an 18-year veteran of the department, was arrested in July 2013 and later admitted to stealing confiscated drugs from the police property room, which he supervised for seven years, saying he made more than $200,000 by reselling them with help from his cousin. Wilson sentenced him on Oct. 30 to more than 11 years in prison, and Reed agreed to turn over all property tied to the illegal activity to the government. That property included the contents of four bank accounts, proceeds from the sale of two houses in Little Rock and one in Prescott, four guns, four vehicles, and about $30,000 in cash.
In a final order of forfeiture signed Wednesday , Wilson noted that the time had expired for any third parties to claim any of the property. He said only one person, Tiffany Bone, challenged one of the vehicle forfeitures and worked out an agreement with federal prosecutors to get that car back. Wilson also noted that the government was no longer seeking the forfeiture of the house at 8303 Winterwood Drive in Little Rock, where Reed lived, but that all other property "should be turned over to the United States Marshals service and disposed of according to law."
Trial set in case tied to '12 arrest
After three years of waiting, former Alexander police officer Brad Lamont Williams, a security guard at the federal administration building in Little Rock, is finally getting his day in court. His 2012 civil-rights lawsuit against former Alexander Police Chief Horace Walters, a retired Little Rock Police Department captain, is scheduled to be heard by a federal jury beginning Aug 31.
Williams sued Walters, who was then Williams' boss, after Walters had Williams arrested on a misdemeanor theft charge involving a paycheck and then fired him as a result. A prosecutor promptly threw out the charge -- but not before Williams spent a day in jail.
In December, a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis cited a history of "bad blood" between Williams and Walters in upholding U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker's refusal to throw out Williams' civil-rights case against Walters. Walters had appealed on the grounds that as the police chief, he was immune from being sued.
The 8th Circuit opinion noted that in 2011, Walters told Williams, who supported the mayor, that the mayor and his supporters were "a bunch of cockroaches," that "the gloves were coming off," and that Walters was "an atomic bomb and he was going to destroy" Williams. The comments led Paul Mitchell, then the mayor, to fire Walters, who was promptly reinstated by the City Council, and who a few months later fired Williams.
Baker, who will preside over the jury trial, earlier dismissed the city of Alexander as a defendant, and the 8th Circuit upheld that ruling as well.
Bid to add people to death suit fails
A federal judge has denied a request to amend a lawsuit filed in October over the September death of 22-year-old Heather Cater of Traskwood, who died after being run over in a Little Rock business parking lot by a vehicle fleeing from sheriff's deputies.
Cater's survivors filed the wrongful death lawsuit against more than a dozen entities, including the Pulaski County sheriff's office, driver Deonte Jones, University Shopping Center and Walgreens, seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Cater exited a dental office where she worked about 6 p.m. Sept. 3, while sheriff's deputies were conducting an undercover drug operation in a parking lot of the shopping center at University and Asher avenues. She found her car blocked in. She was told to wait by the curb. But as deputies tried to arrest the occupants of a black Chevy Tahoe parked at Walgreens, adjacent to the shopping center, the Tahoe sped away, striking Cater, who the lawsuit says flew into the air and was dragged nearly 75 feet before the Tahoe ran over her. She was hospitalized with spinal and lung injuries, and died early the next morning.
The suit alleges that the deputies trapped Cater in a "zone of danger" and that the shopping center and Walgreens lacked proper signage to guide motorists on how to exit the lot correctly. The plaintiffs recently sought to amend the lawsuit to add several defendants who they say are responsible for maintaining the shopping center, but in denying the request this month, the judge said, "Although this is a heartbreaking case, nothing indicates that the individuals that the plaintiffs seek to add would survive a motion to dismiss," because there is no proof they breached a duty to protect Cater.
The case hasn't been set for trial.
Metro on 07/19/2015