A federal judge declined Tuesday to reconsider her decision last week to allow former state Sen. Gilbert Baker to leave an inpatient treatment center for more than two days this month to attend a son's wedding activities.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Tricia Harris said in a two-sentence order that she had carefully considered a federal prosecutor's request Friday that she rethink modifying Gilbert's conditions of release, but the request was denied.
Last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon cited "an inadvertent misunderstanding with defense counsel," who told the judge that the government didn't oppose a pass allowing Gilbert to attend the wedding as long as the pretrial services office approved.
Gordon said that while true, the government didn't know that attorney Blake Hendrix was planning to seek a 50-hour pass that would allow Baker to miss more than two full days of his 30-day treatment program at Freedom House in Russellville. An absence that long from the program could interfere with Gilbert's substance-abuse treatment, Gordon said.
He added that after Hendrix's motion was filed, Gordon spoke with the pretrial services officer supervising Baker, who consulted with his counselor at Freedom House, and both recommended a 12-hour day pass instead, just for the wedding.
Harris granted Baker's request last Wednesday, the same day it was filed, allowing him to leave the treatment center this week from 3 p.m. Friday until 5 p.m. Sunday, to attend a wedding rehearsal dinner on Friday as well as the wedding on Saturday, both in Conway.
Baker, 62, of Conway, who is also a former chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, pleaded innocent last month to single counts of bribery and bribery conspiracy and seven counts of wire fraud. The charges stemmed from an investigation into a purported scheme involving a nursing home owner and a now-imprisoned former judge, Michael Maggio.
Nursing home owner Michael Morton of Fort Smith hasn't been charged with a crime and has denied wrongdoing.
Harris allowed Baker to undergo an inpatient treatment program as part of the conditions of his release pending trial, which is scheduled for October before U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr.
Other conditions of his release are that he not use alcohol and that he submit to random drug and alcohol testing.
Baker is also a former lobbyist and political fundraiser who has been teaching music at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway since he resigned as an executive assistant to the college's president in April 2014. His resignation followed public reports about his involvement in the purported scheme.
That same month, the UCA Foundation returned a $100,000 donation that Morton had sent through Baker in July 2013.
A spokesman for the university said last week that Baker is on sick leave and that the four courses he was teaching had been assigned to another faculty member.
If convicted, Baker faces up to five years on the conspiracy count, 10 years on the bribery count and 20 years on each of the wire-fraud counts.
Metro on 02/20/2019