LITTLE ROCK — A Los Angeles woman pleaded guilty recently in federal court in Little Rock to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering for her part in what federal prosecutors described as a transnational drug trafficking ring responsible for the distribution of hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine in Central Arkansas.
Lorene Wilhite, 36, is one of 31 defendants named in a 53- count indictment handed up by an Arkansas grand jury in September 2018 after an investigation into the drug trafficking organization federal prosecutors said was headed by Eric Baldwin, 29, and Nicholas Robinson, 25, both of Arkansas.
Wilhite is one of six defendants named in the indictment who was not charged with offenses other than conspiracy to commit money laundering. She could be sentenced to a prison term up to 20 years, be fined up to $500,000, and be placed on supervised release for a maximum of three years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens said the recommendation from his office was that Wilhite not be sentenced to prison but be placed on probation.
Wilhite will be sentenced at a later date after submission and review of a pre-sentence investigation report.
Givens described her involvement, along with the involvement of several other co-defendants, as being limited to receiving funds from Arkansas to pay for drugs in California.
He said that Baldwin, whom he described as a primary methamphetamine distributor in Arkansas, began importing methamphetamine from California after being introduced to co-defendant Francis Scott of Los Angeles, a California methamphetamine supplier, by his cousin and co-defendant Aundre Jones, also of Los Angeles.
“Scott sent methamphetamine through the U.S. mail from California to Baldwin and others in Arkansas,” Givens told U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller, who presided over the hearing via teleconference link from the federal courthouse in Helena-West Helena. “Baldwin, in turn, sent money for the methamphetamine to Scott using wire transfer services such as Walmart to Walmart and Western Union.”
Described as a “neighbor or associate” of Jones, Wilhite was accused by federal prosecutors of receiving money wired to California from Arkansas to buy bulk quantities of methamphetamine for shipment back to Arkansas through the U.S. Postal Service. Givens outlined two such transactions, one on June 13, 2017, for $2,300 and another on June 28, 2017, for $2,500.
“Baldwin confirmed to law enforcement that he sent money to Ms. Wilhite to pay for meth that was sent to him by Scott,” Givens said. “Baldwin had pictures of receipts in his phone of money that he sent to Ms. Wilhite.”
Givens explained that Baldwin would take a photo of the receipts and text them to Scott as proof that the money had been sent.
“Baldwin sent money to Ms. Wilhite,” Givens said. “Otherwise, Ms. Wilhite was not involved in the drug conspiracy in order to disguise the true nature, source, and ownership of the proceeds of the unlawful activity.”
Asked by Miller if Givens’ statement of facts was accurate, Wilhite, speaking via videoconference link from Los Angeles, hesitated a moment before speaking, then said although she did receive the money she did not know what it was for.
“In the sense that yes, I did pick up the money,” she said. “All the other stuff is like a story to me, like everything, I don’t know the Eric [Baldwin] guy, and what they were actually doing, I didn’t know all of those details. I should have gotten those details but I didn’t and, yes, I did do those transactions but I didn’t know all those details about that, you know.”
“Mr. Givens,” Miller said, “for this type of conspiracy you don’t have to show that she knows every conspirator and everything but you do need to have some idea that she knew some of what was going on.”
“I agree with Ms. Wilhite that she would not have known, certainly not the people in Arkansas, and that she would not know the full scope of the drug conspiracy,” Givens replied, adding that Wilhite did know both Scott and Jones and that her limited knowledge of the scope of the conspiracy did not absolve her of responsibility for her role.
“I agree with her that she did not know any of the other details involving the overall drug conspiracy,” he said. “We just allege that she picked up the money for Scott and that she did not know the people in Arkansas.”
Although Wilhite admitted to picking up the money wired to her for Scott, she said that her connection with her co-defendant was not a particularly close association.
“I wasn’t his neighbor or his friend. I was his cleaning lady,” she said. “I just want to make that clear.”