Federal jury in Little Rock ponders 40-count meal-fraud case

Closing arguments made on money to feed poor kids

A federal jury began deliberating Wednesday on 39 charges against a Helena-West Helena woman accused of defrauding a state-run program to feed poor children and a single, related charge against an England man.

The panel of six men and six women deliberated for 3½ hours Wednesday afternoon after listening to 2½ hours of closing arguments in the morning. After hearing at day's end that the jurors were "making progress," U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. sent them home for the day with instructions to return to his Little Rock courtroom at 9 a.m. today.

The jurors have 54 instructions to sort through before deciding whether to hold Jacqueline Mills, 41, of Helena-West Helena accountable on one wire-fraud conspiracy charge, 25 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of bribery and three counts of money laundering. Anthony Leon Waits, 38, of England faces a single conspiracy charge.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Cameron McCree started off a morning's worth of closing arguments by telling jurors that the government's case against the two "is a pretty simple story," told through many different eyes and voices.

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But Little Rock defense attorneys Bill James, who is representing Mills, and Willard Proctor Jr., who is representing Waits, cautioned jurors to regard the stream of nearly 60 government witnesses with skepticism. James, banging on a lectern for emphasis, reminded jurors that many of the witnesses came from small towns where the presence of two deputy U.S. marshals knocking on their doors to serve subpoenas after Mills was indicted put pressure on them to say whatever prosecutors wanted them to say.

"They came in flashing their badges, scaring the bejesus out of these people," James said. "A normal person is going to be petrified by that."

He reminded them of the March 28 testimony of David Barnes of Marianna, who was a van driver for a feeding program Mills oversaw in a city park. Barnes had jurors laughing that day when he described the sudden unannounced presence of six gun-toting "government men" at a house he was visiting in 2015.

"There were six men?" James asked.

"To me, it was six," Barnes testified, adding, "When they come, they come in a bunch."

In his closing argument Wednesday, James described Mills, who has for years operated a day care in Helena-West Helena, as someone who "has dedicated her life to kids." Her charges stem from reimbursement claims she submitted through the state Department of Human Services between August 2011 and August 2014. The computer-filed claims reported the number of children that Mills said were fed in after-school and summertime feeding programs she oversaw at 34 locations, including the day care.

Prosecutors said Mills, a state-approved sponsor for feeding programs, overstated some claims and invented others, resulting in her fraudulently receiving $2.7 million in funds paid by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After she was indicted in late 2014, prosecutors said, she created fake documents in an effort to justify many of the claims.

"Who does that?" McCree asked jurors, adding, "Only someone who has something to hide."

Waits, who has operated a lawn-care business and an auto repair shop in North Little Rock, never became a sponsor of feeding programs, as Mills did, but prosecutors said he recruited family members and friends to become official sponsors on paper and then received kickbacks when those people were "reimbursed" through direct deposits into their bank accounts.

Prosecutors said he faces just one charge because he managed to "keep his hands clean" by ensuring that the money wasn't deposited in any bank accounts bearing his name.

Waits' wife, Gladys Elise Waits, who went by the name Gladys King until she married Waits in August 2013, was one of two employees of the Department of Human Services who pleaded guilty in the case and testified against her husband and Mills as a star government witness. She and the other former employee, Tonique Hatton of North Little Rock, told jurors they accepted bribes from Mills to approve her false claims.

Gladys Waits also testified that she approved her husband's family members and friends as sponsors, even if they didn't actually operate any feeding programs, and that she also approved their submitted claims in return for them giving some of the money to Anthony Waits.

Although prosecutors acknowledged there are no bank records to tie Anthony Waits to the scheme, they said the testimony of his relatives and friends, particularly a nephew who admired him, shows otherwise. During closing arguments Wednesday, prosecutors also replayed for jurors an audio recording of an intercepted telephone call in 2015 in which Waits can be heard telling his friend Waymon Weems that he wasn't worried about being indicted.

In the recording, Waits tells Weems, who had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, how to answer the panel's questions. He then tells Weems: "If they had enough evidence, we would have been indicted. I promise that."

The recording also captures Waits saying that if he is indicted, "I'm going to trial" so he can hear who gave prosecutors all their information.

"In trial, they got to release that information," he tells Weems.

"They might give me 10 to 12 years, but when I get out, doon! doon! doon!" he adds, making shooting sounds.

Moody didn't let jurors hear it, but in a pretrial hearing, federal agents testified that Waits had a lengthy criminal history dotted with violence, including reports of him wounding other people or making threats at gunpoint. An FBI agent testified that in 2002, Waits fired shots through the door of a Little Rock home, striking someone twice in the leg, for which he served time in the state Department of Correction.

The agent also testified during a 2015 hearing that Waits' nephew -- who testified against him in this month's trial -- was afraid of him and had seen him hit Gladys Waits. The agent also testified that an ex-girlfriend of Waits' had reported that he shot her in the upper chest and arm.

Jurors in the fraud trial would have learned about Waits' criminal history if he testified, which he didn't. He has remained in custody since that 2015 hearing, though he was permitted to wear street clothes in the trial so jurors wouldn't know he is in custody.

Mills has remained free after being indicted.

Metro on 04/06/2017

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