Gilbert Baker, the Faulkner County Republican who represented District 30 in the Arkansas Senate from 2001 through 2012, expressed relief Monday after Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. granted a motion to dismiss bribery and wire fraud charges against him contained in a 2019 indictment.
Baker, 66, was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count each of conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds, and seven counts of honest services wire fraud. Federal prosecutors accused Baker of bribing former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Michael Maggio in 2013 as part of a scheme to get Maggio to lower a financial judgment against Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in the death of patient Martha Bull, according to a 2019 federal indictment.
After a 13-day trial in July 2021, Marshall declared a mistrial when jurors acquitted Baker on the conspiracy count but could not reach a verdict on the remaining counts.
Less than two weeks later, in August, government prosecutors filed a notice of intent to retry Baker on the remaining counts. Thursday evening, as it appeared both sides were moving forward with preparations to go to trial on Nov. 8, the U.S. attorney's office filed the motion to dismiss the indictment with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be refiled.
Baker, who in 2013 was working as a lobbyist and Republican Party fundraiser, helped arrange contributions from Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center owner Michael Morton for Maggio's campaign for a seat on the Arkansas Court of Appeals. The following year, Maggio withdrew from the race after a scandal related to comments he was purported to have made on a Louisiana State University website. Baker was accused of arranging the 2013 contributions as a bribe to get Maggio to reduce the jury award against the nursing home from $5.2 million to $1 million.
Both Maggio and Morton testified for prosecutors at the trial. Morton maintained that he had broken no laws and the contributions he channeled through Baker to Maggio and to Supreme Court Justice Rhonda Wood -- who also testified -- for her Supreme Court campaign, were routine contributions of the type he made to many candidates. Neither Wood nor Morton were charged in the matter.
Maggio pleaded guilty to bribery in federal court and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, of which he served just under half before being released following his testimony against Baker.
In the wake of the U.S. attorney's filing and Marshall's ruling, Baker said he and his wife, Susan, were both relieved but that the full impact of what had transpired had yet to fully sink in.
"There's a measure of relief, obviously," Baker mused. "Susan and I both, we just aren't really sure how we feel. We've lived with this for so long."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Bragg, the public information officer for the U.S. attorney's office in Little Rock, gave few details about prosecutors' decision to move for the dismissal but did say the decision was heavily influenced by the outcome of the 2021 trial. She said while prosecutors were confident in the strength of the evidence, the complexity of the case created difficulties in presenting that evidence to a jury. The outcome of a second run at it was by no means assured, she said.
"We put a lot of really good effort into the trial," Bragg said. "After the result, we evaluated and decided it would be better to direct our resources elsewhere at this point."
Bragg didn't say how much Baker's prosecution had cost the government, but she did say a case as complex and demanding as Baker's requires a lot of resources, especially at a time when the caseload in the office is greater than that in many larger federal districts.
"This isn't a reflection of an ultimate determination of guilt or innocence by our office," she said. "It's just us needing to do our jobs."
Blake Hendrix, who led Baker's legal team, said he was surprised by the motion last Thursday when it came through late that afternoon. He concurred on the complexity of the case.
"This was a very complex case to prosecute and it was a very complex case to defend," he said, adding that right up until the moment he was made aware of the filing, he, fellow attorney Annie Depper and paralegal Jordan Fowler were feverishly engaged in the final push to prepare for what was expected to be another protracted courtroom battle.
"Annie and JoJo and I had spent the last several days camped out in our conference room, our war room, preparing to go to trial," Hendrix said. "We were in full trial-prep mode when we got that phone call."
Baker expressed gratitude that the legal morass forced him to slow down. Formerly a hard-charging Republican deal-maker and political animal, he said he gained a new appreciation for simpler concerns once he was out of the political limelight.
"The past eight or nine years have been good for me personally," he said. "I've gotten to spend time with my wife, my children and my grandchildren, my mother who is in hospice care now. ... I moved fast, talked fast, I still kind of talk fast, but I don't miss it."
He called the U.S. justice system the best in the world, saying, "it's imperfect but it works."
"Everyone involved did their jobs: the judge, the prosecutors, the probation office and the jury," he said. "They did their jobs and they did it professionally."