FAYETTEVILLE -- A federal appeals court will not grant another hearing in the appeal of Oren Paris III, the former Ecclesia College president who pleaded guilty in a kickback scheme involving former state Sen. Jon Woods.
The court's rejection of Paris' appeal stands.
The court denied the request to rehear in the case in two-sentence ruling Wednesday.
Paris, of Springdale, paid kickbacks to then-state Sen. Jon Woods and then-state Rep. Micah Neal, both of Springdale, in return for $550,000 in state grants to Ecclesia from 2013 to 2015. The kickbacks were routed through the consulting business of Randell Shelton Jr., a friend of Woods and Paris.
Paris is serving a three-year federal prison sentence on one charge of conspiracy. Woods and Shelton Jr. are appealing their convictions to the same court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit, on largely the same grounds. Neal has already served a one-year sentence of home detention for his role. He cooperated with investigators.
Neal pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. Woods and Shelton were convicted of several corruption charges May 3, 2018. Woods is serving an 18-year sentence. Shelton is serving six years.
Paris resigned as president of Ecclesia and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy on April 4, 2018, just before his trial with Shelton and Woods was to begin. He agreed to plead guilty on the condition he be allowed to appeal on the basis of an FBI investigator's actions.
Agent Robert Cessario of the FBI wiped the hard drive of a laptop used to gather and send electronic files to defense attorneys in the case. He had the hard drive wiped professionally and then wiped it himself before turning it over to investigators after defense attorneys discovered he hadn't transferred all the files.
Cessario's actions surfaced in pretrial hearings in the case. Paris decided to plead guilty after the trial judge ruled against the defendants' motions to dismiss the charges over Cessario's acts.