A Pulaski County circuit judge has set bail at $100,000, down from $500,000, for a 25-year-old Jacksonville man facing federal kidnapping charges in Minnesota and suspected in the death of his girlfriend, whose burning body was found in New Orleans.
Defense attorney David Sudduth argued for the bail reduction, since in Arkansas, Joseph Sean-Anthony "Joey" Porter is charged only with theft by receiving involving a car stolen from New Orleans. Investigators found the vehicle at Porter's home at the Lakeside Estates mobile home park, 2613 E. Coffelt Road, when he was arrested in January.
Sudduth told the judge that Porter, who did not testify at the March 27 bail hearing, shouldn't be considered a flight risk since federal marshals will take him to Minnesota if he posts bail in Little Rock, where he's been jailed for the past 2½ months.
The silver Pontiac G6 had been taken from a salvage yard in New Orleans about a quarter-mile from where the woman's remains were found burning Jan. 6 in a storage container. Police, who had been hunting Porter for days, arrested him and seized the car before it had even been reported stolen in New Orleans, according to testimony.
Deputy prosecutor Scott Duncan opposed the bail reduction, describing Porter as a danger to the community and a flight risk. There's no guarantee that federal authorities will take Porter into custody if he posts bail, the prosecutor said.
Porter has previous convictions for second-degree battery in Chicot County and a 2013 theft conviction in California, Duncan said.
Porter's Jan. 10 arrest came six days after the last time 27-year-old Christina Prodan of Edina, Minn., was seen alive, Special Agent Kevin Webb with the Arkansas State Police told the judge at the March 27 bail hearing.
Police in the Minneapolis suburb had encountered the couple during a domestic disturbance on Jan. 4, and Prodan's mother reported her missing the next day, "like she just vanished," Webb testified.
The investigation has grown to include the FBI and police agencies in four states -- Arkansas, Louisiana, Minnesota and Missouri, Webb said.
Investigators learned that Porter had been stopped twice for traffic infractions, once in Missouri and again in Ash Flat, near where his mother lives, hours after police had last seen the couple together, Webb said. Porter was driving a black Honda Accord, and both officers noted that Porter was alone, with digging implements in the vehicle, the investigator told the judge.
Porter's husband, Richard Thomas Crawford-Porter of Jacksonville, said that Joey Porter had told him that Prodan was dead when he left Minnesota and that he had driven her body down to New Orleans, where he purchased 2 gallons of gasoline, put the remains in a shipping container and set the fire, Webb told the judge.
Webb said Porter's mother, Arlie Porter, told investigators that her son -- three weeks before Prodan disappeared -- had told her he planned on kidnapping the woman, draining her bank account, emptying her safe deposit box, then taking her someplace no one would find her.
Significantly, a Lonoke County deputy had come across Joey Porter asleep in the Pontiac at a boat ramp at Lake Pickthorne the day before he was arrested and noted that Porter had singed hair and burns on his face and arms, Webb said.
Records show that the deputy didn't question Porter further because a background check did not show that authorities were looking for him.
Webb told the judge that Porter had a bushy haircut when he was last seen by police, but that, when he was arrested, his head was freshly shaved. Investigators found burned hair in his yard, the state police agent said.
Federal investigators say Porter was living in Arkansas when he met Prodan in Minnesota through Facebook and moved into the condominium she shared with her mother around Oct. 1. The older woman moved out about two weeks later, telling police that she was afraid of him.
Prodan told her mother that Porter had beaten and raped her, but that she loved him and did not want to leave him, federal court records show. Prodan had reported to police on Nov. 16 that Porter had raped and sodomized her. Court records show that police had been called to the home 19 times between Oct. 24 and the time Prodan disappeared.
Seven of the calls were for domestic disturbances, once was for a rape report. Police arrested Porter three times, once on a domestic assault charge and twice on charges of violating a domestic-abuse no-contact order.
Three days before she was reported missing, Prodan told her mother that she was planning to move to Arkansas with Porter but didn't say when. Prodan said she'd move back to Minnesota if things between them did not work out.
The last time police saw Prodan alive, she was the passenger in Porter's Honda Accord that pulled up next to an Edina, Minn., police officer. Porter complained that Prodan wouldn't get out of his car, while she told the officer she was trying to work things out with him, court filings show. She did get out of the car and started walking toward home.
About 15 minutes later, Prodan's mother called police to have them check on her daughter, saying the younger woman had argued with Porter and that Prodan was worried that he would take her things.
Seven minutes later, Prodan called the Wright County sheriff's office, sounding upset and saying she didn't feel safe and that her boyfriend had hurt her. The call, on a nonemergency line, was not transferred to police because Prodan said officers had just pulled up in her parking lot.
About 19 hours later, police stopped Porter for the first time. He was pulled over again 4½ hours after that in Ash Flat. An Evening Shade police officer said Porter did not have any burns then, court filings show.
Prodan's mother reported her daughter missing after arriving at the home and finding that the locks on the doors had been changed and Prodan was gone, court filings show.
Investigators discovered that Prodan's cellphone was activated in the Cabot area for about four hours the afternoon before Porter's arrest, about the time he had been seen at the lake.
Porter's California conviction stems from the June 2013 arrest of Porter and his husband in a stolen van that Porter was driving in Cambria, Calif., midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Court records show that three months earlier, in April 2013, a seemingly intoxicated Porter was found inside the Lakewood police substation in North Little Rock. The glass front door and numerous items in the building had been broken, according to an arrest report.
That report describes Porter as homeless and acting strangely. He told police that he had broken into the station at 2919 Lakewood Village Drive because he was angry and the station was close. He was charged with commercial burglary and misdemeanor criminal mischief, but the charges were dropped after his arrest in California.
Metro on 04/03/2018