CONWAY -- Former state Sen. Gilbert Baker, a lobbyist and former chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, tested positive for methamphetamine after Conway police stopped him last month for drunken driving, a toxicology report shows.
City Attorney Chuck Clawson released the report Wednesday in response to a request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Clawson's office received the report earlier Wednesday, a day after Baker pleaded guilty in a negotiated agreement in Faulkner County District Court to driving while intoxicated and refusing to take a breath test. Baker's blood alcohol level Aug. 26 tested 0.149 percent, compared with 0.08 percent, the legal limit under Arkansas law.
Baker, 60, of Conway did not return a phone message seeking comment Wednesday. His attorney, Frank Shaw, said he had not been authorized to discuss the latest development but would try to have a comment later.
[DOCUMENT: Read Baker's toxicology report]
Clawson said no additional charges under Arkansas law could or would be filed against Baker as a result of the drug finding.
The law does not provide for charging Baker with driving while intoxicated because of alcohol and driving while intoxicated because of drugs when the charges would be "arising from the same course of conduct," Clawson said.
Clawson said he didn't have the information about meth being in Baker's system when Baker pleaded guilty to driving while intoxicated. But there wouldn't have been any changes even if he had, he said.
"It's not illegal to have anything in your system," the city attorney said.
Clawson said he knew of no drug paraphernalia or methamphetamine found in Baker's possession at the time of the arrest.
Baker's license was automatically suspended for six months once he was charged with driving while intoxicated, Clawson noted.
Had Clawson known about the meth and charged Baker in regard to that instead, "the only real difference" would have been that Baker would not have qualified for a device that allows for a person to take what amounts to a breath test before he drives. A driver whose license is suspended for drunken driving can legally drive in Arkansas with the device, Clawson said. But a driver charged with driving while intoxicated in relation to drugs is not eligible for it, Clawson said.
Clawson said he understood that Baker already had obtained the device, which would allow him to drive even though his license is officially suspended. If a driver who is required to use the device is caught driving without it, that person's license is then suspended for six months and he gets a mandatory 10 days in jail, the city attorney said.
Baker was sentenced Tuesday to two days in jail, with credit for already serving one, and ordered to pay $1,225 in fines and court costs.
In a statement later Tuesday, Baker said he had made two "serious mistakes" on the night of Aug. 26 -- being antagonistic toward the police officers who stopped his car and driving home from Little Rock after having consumed alcohol. The statement did not mention his use of methamphetamine.
"First, I was very belligerent and disrespectful to several Conway police officers when they pulled me over at about 8:30 p.m. in front of the new Wal-Mart on Dave Ward Drive," Baker said in the statement.
"Second, I was wrong to have driven home from Little Rock after having had some alcohol earlier in the evening. I regret both bad decisions and accept the responsibility and consequences of those decisions," he said.
The laboratory analysis, prepared by the state Crime Laboratory, does not give the level of meth in Baker's blood.
Baker tested negative for all other drugs screened. They included benzodiazepines, which include tranquilizers such as Valium; cannabinoids, which are found in marijuana; cocaine; methadone; opiates, which often are used to induce sleep or relieve pain; oxycodone; and propoxyphene, which is chemically related to methadone.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse's website describes meth as "a powerful, highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system."
Like its parent drug amphetamine, the more potent "methamphetamine causes increased activity and talkativeness, decreased appetite and a pleasurable sense of well-being or euphoria," the website says.
Legally, methamphetamine is available only through a nonrefillable prescription, according to the website.
"Medically it may be indicated for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and as a short-term component of weight-loss treatments, but these uses are limited and it is rarely prescribed," the website says. Further, "the prescribed doses are far lower than those typically abused."
Baker is an assistant professor of music at the University of Central Arkansas, where he was a top administrator until he resigned from the position as details of what led to a federal criminal investigation began to emerge in early 2014.
UCA spokesman Christina Madsen said the university does not comment on personnel matters.
When Baker was a state legislator, he fought the sale of alcoholic beverages in Conway restaurants. Faulkner County is dry, but many of the city's restaurants have private-club permits and now serve alcohol.
The federal investigation of Baker came in regard to campaign contributions that nursing home owner Michael Morton made to several political action committees that in turn donated money to former Circuit Judge Michael Maggio's final judicial campaign. Baker was a fundraiser for Maggio's campaign.
Shortly after Morton sent the money to Baker for the PACs, Maggio reduced a Faulkner County jury's $5.2 million judgment in a negligence lawsuit against Morton's Greenbrier nursing home to $1 million.
In January 2015, Maggio pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge but since has tried to withdraw the plea and has appealed.
Neither Morton nor Baker has been charged with a crime, and both have denied wrongdoing.
A Section on 09/29/2016