Jimmy Clouette, a longtime Little Rock attorney, has accepted a sentence of five years of probation for methamphetamine possession and will have to surrender his law license.
Clouette, 69, pleaded no contest before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen on Tuesday, court filings show.
It is the second time in 6½ years that Clouette has been put on probation for methamphetamine possession.
In both cases, he was arrested after bank surveillance videos showed small packets falling from his pants pocket. The packets later were identified as containing methamphetamine.
Clouette has been a licensed attorney since 1975. His law license was suspended in June 2015 after his arrest on the most recent charge, a Class D felony that carries at most a six-year prison sentence.
He will serve his probation in Harrison, court records show. He had enrolled in a recovery program after he was arrested, court records indicate.
Conditions of his probation require that he report to his probation officer weekly for the first six months and attend four Narcotics Anonymous meetings every month. For the second six months, he must report to the probation officer twice a month, which will drop to monthly reporting after that.
Clouette will be subjected to random drug testing while on probation and will have to pay for the tests.
While the terms of his probation require that he give up his law license, he can petition to have it reinstated after he completes his sentence. Also he will be eligible to have his record expunged if he stays out of trouble with the law during the course of his sentence.
Clouette was arrested in April 2015 after a security manager at the One Banc branch on North Rodney Parham Road in Little Rock reported to police finding a small plastic bag containing a crystalline substance on the floor in front of a bank teller after Clouette had cashed a check there, according to an arrest affidavit.
A review of the bank surveillance video showed Clouette standing in front of the teller window. According to the affidavit, he's seen reaching into his front-left pants pocket, and a white object drops to the floor when he pulls his hand out of his pocket. After completing his banking business, Clouette walks away, leaving the object on the floor, the affidavit says.
Testing showed that the material in the bag was methamphetamine.
In November 2008, Clouette was also arrested after dropping a small bag of methamphetamine in the lobby of the Iberia Bank branch at South Broadway and Capitol Avenue in Little Rock.
In that case, a video showed Clouette reaching into his right pants pocket as he walked through the lobby and a small object appearing on the ground behind him. A customer picked up the thumb-sized bag and gave it to bank officials.
At a November 2009 bench trial, he was sentenced to two years on probation for methamphetamine possession. The judge found sufficient evidence to convict Clouette but said he would withhold registering a conviction if Clouette could serve his sentence without getting into more trouble.
The next year, the state Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct cautioned Clouette. Nine months later, the high court found that sanction to be too lenient and ordered the committee to reconsider.
The panel then issued a reprimand that required Clouette's work to be monitored by another lawyer for two years. The Supreme Court rejected disbarment as a punishment.
Clouette's last appearance as an attorney in Pulaski County Circuit Court was in April 2015, a week after his arrest.
Clouette was appearing with a client when Circuit Judge Herb Wright ordered Clouette to be drug-tested. Instead of submitting to the test, Clouette left the courthouse, and Wright issued an arrest order for contempt of court that required that Clouette be jailed until the end of that month.
Clouette was not arrested, and subsequently returned to court after a week and passed a drug test, court records show. He passed another test for the judge two weeks after that, and the judge dropped his contempt case after Clouette withdrew from representing his client and had his license suspended.
Metro on 06/08/2016