A Missouri man who pleaded guilty in April to federal charges in the robbery of one store in Arkansas and the attempted robbery of another in 2019 was sentenced to nine years in federal prison Friday by U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker.
Kenneth Wendell Carter, 39, of St. Louis was arrested Oct. 24, 2019, in the incidents, which occurred on Oct. 13 and 14 of that year in Forrest City and Pocahontas. He was indicted in December 2019 on two counts of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence and one count each of interference with commerce by robbery and interference with commerce by attempted robbery.
On April 27, Carter pleaded guilty to counts one and two of the indictment, interference with commerce by robbery and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in exchange for prosecutors' agreement to drop the other two counts against him.
For the firearms violation, federal sentencing guidelines required Baker to sentence Carter to a minimum of seven years in prison to run consecutive to any other sentence imposed. Carter could have been sentenced to a maximum of 20 years on robbery count.
According to a criminal complaint filed Nov. 11, 2019, three people robbed the Westside Market in Forrest City of $1,000 on Oct. 13, 2019.
After the clerk opened the cash register, one of the robbers, later identified as Carter, pulled a pistol and demanded the money before the three fled.
About 3:30 a.m. the next day, three men entered the T-Ricks gas station and convenience store in Pocahontas, and one of the men, later identified as Carter, pulled a pistol and demanded money. After the clerk refused to open the register, the three men fled.
Video surveillance footage from another business taken about one hour before the incident at T-Ricks showed Carter getting out of an SUV with Missouri plates that were registered to Carter.
When police found the SUV, the complaint said, they found a loaded pistol, which Carter said belonged to him and said it was used in both incidents. Carter admitted his involvement in both incidents to police at the time of his arrest.
Carter's attorney, Jordan Tinsley of Little Rock argued that Carter, despite having spent nearly half of his life in prison on a robbery conviction in Missouri when he was 19 years old, deserved a break. Tinsley said Carter had begun putting his life back together after his release after 16 years in prison, had found a steady job, begun attending church and assisted family members with financial help and other support.
"He gets out and he's doing everything right," Tinsley said. "He's going to church and developing a society of friends. He's got two jobs that he's working very hard at."
All of that came undone, Tinsley said, when Carter attended a funeral in his old neighborhood and met up with some of his old friends who talked him into giving them a ride to Memphis to buy marijuana."
"He made a dumb decision while hanging out with some old friends," Tinsley said.
Lisa Davidson, pastor of The Loft, a church she and her husband founded in St. Louis, described Carter as honest and hardworking and a positive influence to young people at the church.
"I know he worked the two jobs and he also served at our church," Davidson said. "He would set up and tear down for any event we would have. He was just present."
Laura Strasser of St. Louis, who employed Carter at a pesticide service company, described Carter as dependable and honest.
"We had customers who would specifically request him because he did such a good job," Strasser said.
She said Carter's reentry into society was made more difficult by the financial demands of the Missouri justice system after he was released from prison.
"The debt that is imposed on people coming out of prison is immense," she said. "He doesn't have an angry bone in his body, but he's taking anger management classes ... and these classes are like $300 or $400."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Gordon said the support shown for Carter made it all the more inexplicable that he would take off on a multistate crime binge, and asked for Baker to sentence him to a total of 10 years.
"The one thing I can't get past is that Mr. Carter was 39 when he did this," Gordon said. "He had a tremendous support system around him, he had the right attitude coming out of prison and yet none of that mattered."
In announcing the sentence, Baker said she was inclined to grant a variance but not to the extent requested by Tinsley.
"This is a violent crime," Baker said. "That no one was killed was not attributable to anyone's good judgment. ... There was no good judgment in this case."
In addition to the nine years in prison, Baker sentenced Carter to three years supervised release and ordered him to pay $1,000 restitution to Westside Market in Forrest City.