CONWAY -- Newly filed documents in a corruption lawsuit filed against nursing-home owner Michael Morton and lobbyist Gilbert Baker have shed light on dozens of political contribution checks.
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Thirty-six checks were in a FedEx package that Morton mailed to Baker on a single day in the summer of 2013. Among them were $3,000 checks written to each of the 10 political action committees that Morton said he intended to help finance Michael Maggio's campaign for the Arkansas Court of Appeals.
Also included was a $100,000 check to the University of Central Arkansas Foundation, the fundraising arm of UCA, where Baker was a top administrator until contention linking him to the Maggio donations forced him to resign from that position and teach music instead.
The package also included checks for the campaign of a rising judge, Rhonda Wood, then an appeals court jurist and now an associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court. At one time, Wood and Maggio had worked alongside each other as circuit judges, sharing court space in a renovated church building in Conway. But as Wood's career escalated, Maggio's crashed.
Contention surrounding online comments made by Maggio forced him out of the appeals court race. The Supreme Court later ordered him removed from office, and in March of this year, a federal judge sentenced him to prison for bribery.
Details about the FedEx package's contents appear in documents Morton's attorney John Everett filed last week in an effort to get the corruption lawsuit against Morton and Baker dismissed in Faulkner County Circuit Court. The lawsuit accuses Morton and Baker of conspiring to funnel contributions to Maggio's appeals court campaign in exchange for Maggio's July 2013 decision to reduce a jury's $5.2 million judgment to $1 million in a negligence lawsuit against Morton's Greenbrier nursing home.
The documents include legal arguments and excerpts from depositions given under oath by Morton, Baker and others in the corruption lawsuit. The depositions focus new attention on the check-laden package that Morton mailed to Baker and a fax that Baker had earlier sent to Morton requesting the contributions. Both actions took place months before judicial campaigns could legally seek or accept donations.
Previously reviewed campaign records show that Morton and his companies contributed $46,000 to Wood's successful 2014 bid for the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Wood told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that her campaign did not receive any money before the authorized November date for judicial candidates in 2013.
"All checks we received were dated appropriately after the start date," she said in an email. "We certainly had no knowledge of the facts you allege were testified to in a deposition and do not know if those facts are accurate. Gilbert Baker certainly was not authorized to solicit or receive funds prior to the November start date."
Attorneys often take depositions to find out what prospective witnesses will say once a case goes to trial. The corruption lawsuit against Morton and Baker is awaiting trial.
The developments in the civil case come as Maggio appeals his bribery conviction. Maggio, 54, pleaded guilty to the federal charge in January 2015. Earlier this year, he tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the plea and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He remains free, pending the appeal.
Neither Morton nor Baker has been charged with a crime. Both men have denied wrongdoing.
Everything about the FedEx package is important, from the date Morton mailed it -- July 8, 2013, the same day Maggio heard a plea from one of Morton's nursing homes to lower the jury's judgment -- to a receipt showing that the package arrived the next day at Baker's home in Conway. The day after that, July 10, 2013, Maggio reduced the judgment to $1 million.
In his plea agreement, Maggio admitted lowering the amount in exchange for Morton's campaign contributions. The sisters who had filed that lawsuit over the death of their mother, Martha Bull of Perryville, are also the plaintiffs in the current corruption lawsuit.
Of the $30,000 in contributions that Morton and his companies gave to the 10 PACs that Baker was having formed, $12,700 made its way to Maggio's campaign months later, according to the newly filed court documents. That's two more PACs than previously reported.
The fax that Morton has said Baker sent him did not suggest an amount that Morton should give to the UCA Foundation, although it listed specific sums for at least some other recipients, including the PACs, according to Morton's deposition excerpt and to his previous testimony before the Arkansas Ethics Commission staff.
"And then you've already mentioned that with UCA Foundation had [been marked with] a question mark?" Morton was asked during his deposition.
"Yes," he replied.
"And -- and you don't have that fax anymore?"
"No," Morton said.
"Did you write all those checks at the same time?"
"Yes," he said.
An excerpt from Baker's deposition homed in on the checks that were in the FedEx package.
The excerpt began with an attorney asking Baker, "And then one to UCA?"
"Right," Baker replied.
"So a minimum of 36 checks, is that right -- if you add those numbers up?" the attorney asked.
"Sure," Baker said. "I -- and like I told you very specifically, that I remember those Rhonda Wood checks being there and the UCA checks being there. I don't specifically remember the -- PAC checks, but more than likely they were there, I just don't remember those."
UCA spokesman Christina Madsen said Friday that the foundation said it had received only the one Morton check, which the foundation later returned.
During Baker's deposition, he was asked if he knew where Morton got the PACs' names.
"From a fax that I sent, more than likely sent," Baker said.
"Okay. So you did send the fax?"
"As I've mentioned before, I believe I did," Baker said.
"Okay."
"I can't remember specifically writing it out and [sending] it, but ...," Baker continued.
"And you don't remember if the Wood contribution, $50,000, or the Arkansans for Lawsuit Reform were on there?"
"Correct," Baker said.
"On that fax?"
"Correct," he said.
The excerpt from Morton's deposition began at the end of a question: "Reform?" Morton's answer was "[$]50,000." Morton is known to support efforts by the tax-exempt Arkansans for Lawsuit Reform, an organization that seeks to strengthen restrictions on lawsuits.
Other deposition excerpts were included from Linda Leigh Flanagin, a lobbyist who has worked with Baker; Chris Stewart, the lawyer who created the PACs for Baker; and retired U.S. District Judge James Moody, an expert witness for Morton.
When Flanagin was asked if she had asked Morton to support Maggio if Maggio ran for the state appeals court, she replied, "I don't know," according to the deposition excerpt.
Stewart said during his deposition that he had not known about the lawsuit against Morton's Greenbrier nursing home until news about the PACs broke.
"Didn't know Morton, didn't know Maggio, I had no knowledge of this case," Stewart said.
Stewart said he could remember "vividly" how he found out about the PAC contributions by Morton's nursing homes.
"I was in Washington, D.C., and I got a phone call from [political consultant] Clint Reed, who's a friend of mine ... and he said, 'Did you form some PACs for nursing homes?'
"And I said, 'Absolutely not, no.'
"And he said, 'Well did you form this PAC, this PAC, and this PAC?'
"And I said, 'Well, yes.'
"And he said, 'Well you probably need to take a look at this. ... I think ... you need to see where that money came from.'"
"I was pretty shocked about that. Oh, and he said, 'The reason I know is because there's a Democrat-Gazette reporter that's digging around into these PACs.'
"And at that time I had really no knowledge to," said Stewart, whose deposition excerpt ends there.
Stewart and his wife, Julie, were among the contributors to Maggio's campaign. Each donated $2,000, and Stewart's law firm gave Maggio's campaign an additional $2,000, according to campaign-finance records.
Everett, Morton's attorney, asked Special Judge David Laser to dismiss the current lawsuit against Morton and Baker, in part because, Everett said, any impartial judge would have lowered the jury's $5.2 million judgment as Maggio did.
Everett cited deposition testimony by Moody to support that argument.
In a deposition, Moody said, based on his review of the case, he believed that if he or "any impartial judge" had been presiding, the judgment would and should have been lowered "given the evidence ... and the limited amount of the damages."
Attorney Thomas Buchanan, who represents Bull's daughters, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
A Section on 06/01/2016