BENTONVILLE -- Former Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck can keep his certification to be a law enforcement officer.
The 4-3 decision Aug. 31 was made by the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training in East Camden. Certification is needed to be a sworn law enforcement officer in Arkansas.
Cradduck pleaded no contest in April 2016 to felony and misdemeanor tampering charges. Benton County prosecutor Nathan Smith filed a complaint over Cradduck with the commission and testified at the Aug. 31 hearing.
After Cradduck's no-contest plea, he was placed on unsupervised probation for six months and had to pay $670 in court costs. The case has since been expunged. Cradduck resigned the same month.
Cradduck encouraged sheriff's office employees on Oct. 13, 2015, to lie to Arkansas State Police investigators, according to Jason Barrett, the special prosecutor assigned to the case.
State police officers investigated Cradduck's hiring of Gabriel Cox to work in the jail and whether Cradduck ordered payroll records for Cox to be altered to show a hiring date that was earlier than when he started to work. A felony charge that involved Cox's hiring paperwork later was dropped.
Cradduck previously said he wanted to help Cox, who was homeless, by hiring him to work in the jail. Cox was staying with Cradduck at the time, according to court documents.
Cradduck was sworn in as sheriff on Jan. 1, 2013. In the March 2016 Republican primary, he finished third.
Metro on 09/09/2017