A man who had Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Buckner's missing pistol when arrested in August was sentenced to two years of probation Thursday without saying how he acquired the .40-caliber Glock.
The sentence imposed on 20-year-old Nathaniel Mitchell Sullivan of Little Rock by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen was based on state sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender with no serious criminal history.
Sullivan pleaded guilty to theft by receiving in October in exchange for prosecutors not making a sentencing recommendation. The charge is a Class D felony that carries a maximum of six years in prison.
Sullivan also was ordered to pay a $500 fine, attend a theft-prevention class and complete 50 hours of community service within the next year.
If he stays out of trouble with the law while he's on probation, he can have his record expunged.
Buckner was invited to Thursday's sentencing hearing but did not attend. The police chief has said he does not know Sullivan and does not know how Sullivan got his weapon.
Buckner reported the weapon missing in June. He told city officials the gun disappeared during a move to a new home over the Memorial Day weekend.
He was subsequently reprimanded for improper or negligent handling of city property. He reimbursed the city the $457.80 cost of the handgun.
He has said he does not think the weapon was stolen.
The firearm was one of two issued to Buckner after he was sworn in as chief in June 2014. It has the shield of the Police Department on its side. The city can petition the court for its return once the criminal proceedings are concluded.
Little Rock police arrested Sullivan and a second man, 20-year-old Edward McKay Williams, in August outside Elegant Accents Jewelers at the Shackleford Crossings shopping center in the 2600 block of Shackleford Road. Police had been called to investigate suspicious activity involving a black car.
Officers found Sullivan in the passenger seat with Buckner's pistol in his lap while Williams, the driver, had a stolen .40-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol in his lap.
Williams also was charged with felony theft by receiving; his case is set for trial in January. A backpack with a small amount of suspected marijuana also was found in the car, but no charges were filed related to that discovery.
Court records show that Sullivan has been in trouble with the law before. He received a one-year suspended sentence last month for an April 19 arrest for misdemeanor drug possession at the intersection of Interstate 30 and University Avenue.
In August 2013, a month before his 18th birthday, Sullivan was one of four teenagers charged with aggravated robbery over accusations they had robbed two other teens at gunpoint.
A review of the evidence by a circuit judge identified Sullivan as playing a "leadership role" as the only one of the defendants identified as possessing a weapon, court filings show. He also had three prior juvenile misdemeanor convictions for unspecified nonviolent offenses, according to the judge's findings.
One of his co-defendants in that case, Deonte Tywon "Strong" Jones, now 20, has since been charged with capital murder and leaving the scene of an accident with death over accusations he ran over a woman with an SUV in September 2014 while trying to flee police at a drugstore on South University Avenue.
But the armed robbery charges were dropped against Sullivan, Jones and the two other defendants in July 2014 after one of their accusers, Derrian Brown, then 17, stopped cooperating with prosecutors after he was charged with robbery.
Brown's charges were based on accusations that he and two other 17-year-olds attacked another teen, Terry Tate, and stole his shirt, shoes and wallet in January 2014 in Little Rock. Brown was prosecuted in juvenile court on the condition that he plead guilty there to felony theft and misdemeanor battery, court filings show.
Metro on 11/20/2015