LITTLE ROCK — A federal judge Tuesday denied former University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin’s request to end his supervised release resulting from Hardin’s federal felony convictions in 2011.
Judge James Moody Jr. didn’t offer an explanation for his decision in a three-sentence order. Moody is the son of retired Judge James Moody, who originally handled Hardin’s case in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.
The U.S. attorney’s office said it had no objection to granting the termination motion, filed in April by Hardin’s attorney, Chuck Banks.
Hardin, 63, has completed the majority of a five-year sentence resulting from his guilty pleas in 2011 to charges of money laundering and wire fraud.
On April 15, Banks filed the termination motion, noting Hardin had then completed 3½ years of the sentence.
Banks didn’t immediately return phone or email messages seeking comment Tuesday. A working phone number for Hardin wasn’t found.
Michael Johnson, a visiting professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law and a former first assistant U.S. attorney, said Tuesday he had “no idea” why the judge would have denied Hardin’s motion.
Johnson said in April it’s “not uncommon” for courts to end supervised release early if a person has met all requirements.
“Typically, the court is going to be guided to a great extent by the input from the probation office,” Johnson said Tuesday.
That doesn’t seem to have been the problem for Hardin.
In April, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris wrote in a response the U.S. attorney’s office conferred with the federal probation office, which “confirms that [Hardin] has completed his community service hours.”
“According to the United States Probation Office, [Hardin] meets the criteria for early termination of supervised release, and therefore the United States has no objection to granting this motion,” Harris said.
As part of the September 2011 sentence, Hardin was required to complete 200 hours of community service per year as part of his probation. Authorities never have said publicly what kind of community service Hardin provided.
Asked whether the high-profile aspects of the case could be a factor in such a ruling, Johnson said, “It won’t have much to do with the high-profile” nature.
The charges against Hardin resulted from a memorandum Hardin falsified in 2008 to persuade UCA’s board to speed up a $300,000 bonus for him. Hardin got the bonus but repaid it under faculty pressure and resigned from the president’s job in August 2008.
Hardin could have been sentenced to prison and fined.
Before his legal problems began, Hardin was a state senator for 14 years. In 1996, he lost a U.S. Senate race. The next year, he became director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. In September 2002, he was named UCA president.
On June 30, 2009, the private Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida hired Hardin as president. He resigned from that job shortly before he entered the guilty pleas.