A former Republican state senator -- the son of a former congressman and nephew of a former governor -- is scheduled to be sentenced today in federal court on charges related to a bribery and extortion scheme that has landed a number of lawmakers and others in jail.
Jeremy Hutchinson, 48, of Little Rock, is scheduled to go before U.S. District Judge Kristine G. Baker for sentencing on one count each of conspiracy to commit bribery and willfully making and subscribing to a false income tax return. According to sentencing memorandums filed U.S. Attorney Stephanie Mazzanti and by Hutchinson's attorneys, the government is seeking a sentence of 6½ years and Hutchinson is asking for prison time of one year and one day.
Hutchinson pleaded guilty to the charges -- which were contained in two separate indictments across two separate federal districts before being merged into a single case -- on June 25, 2019, in Baker's court.
In the Eastern District of Arkansas, the former legislator admitted to filing a false income tax return in 2012 that under-reported his income in the 2011 tax year. His plea agreement noted that he also made false statements on subsequent tax returns through 2014. In the state's Western District, he admitted to conspiring from 2014-17 to commit bribery with the co-owner of orthodontic clinics in Arkansas to further legislation favorable to the businesses.
The next month, in the Western District of Missouri, Hutchinson pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud a federally funded charity, for which he faces a maximum sentence of five years.
According to federal sentencing statutes, Hutchinson could be sentenced to up to five years in federal prison on each of the conspiracy charges and up to three years on the tax charge -- for a maximum of 13 years -- in addition to fines of up to $600,000 in all three cases.
As a state senator who was first elected in 2010 and who resigned after his Aug. 30, 2018 indictment by a Little Rock grand jury, Hutchinson represented Senate District 33, which includes portions of Pulaski and Saline counties. When he resigned, he had been chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee for several years. He previously served as a state representative, from 2000-07.
The Western District bribery conspiracy charge to which Hutchinson pleaded guilty accused him of accepting $157,500 from four businesses co-owned by a person referred to as "Individual A," and later identified as Benjamin Burris of Fort Smith, a part-owner of orthodontic clinics in Arkansas, between February 2014 and November 2016.
Court records indicated that Burris sought Hutchinson's help in amending the Dental Practices Act, which generally prohibited any dentist licensed by the Arkansas State Board of Dental Examiners as a specialist, such as an orthodontist, from practicing outside that specialty.
Court records said the payments to Hutchinson were disguised as legal fees and retainers but in reality were bribes for legislative actions Hutchinson took to amend the law. Burris was sentenced in Arkansas' western district to one year and one day in January 2022.
Hutchinson was also implicated in a widespread fraud investigation involving a Missouri-based non-profit, Preferred Family Healthcare, which at one time was the largest Medicaid-funded provider of counseling to troubled youth and adults in Arkansas, with 47 locations statewide. The state yanked the company's licenses to operate in Arkansas on June 29, 2018, after the federal investigation exposed the breadth of the scandal, and last year the company agreed to pay $8 million in restitution to Arkansas and to the federal government.
Hutchinson was one of a number of state lawmakers ensnared in illegal dealings with executives of the nonprofit, including Jon Woods and Micah Neal, both of Springdale, Hank Wilkins IV of Pine Bluff and Eddie Wayne Cooper of Melbourne.
Woods was convicted May 3, 2018, of 15 counts of public corruption and is currently serving 18 years in federal prison. According to the Bureau of Prisons, Woods is scheduled for release in mid-2033. Neal pleaded guilty in January 2017 for his role in the same scheme, and he testified against Woods. Neal was sentenced in September 2018 to three years of probation with one year to be served under house arrest.
No sentencing date has been set for Cooper, whose legal proceedings were handled by a federal judge in the Western District of Missouri.
Wilkins' bribery and misuse of funds came to light in March 2018 in a federal courtroom in Missouri, where Preferred Family Healthcare lobbyist Milton "Rusty" Cranford was arraigned on bribery charges. Cranford pleaded guilty June 7, 2018, in the Western District of Missouri to bribery involving Arkansas lawmakers between 2010 and 2017. He was sentenced to seven years in prison on Nov. 25, 2019, and, according to the Bureau of Prisons website, was released Nov. 18, 2022.
Beginning Dec. 29 of last year, Hutchinson was jailed for 19 days for failing to pay over a half-million dollars in court-ordered child support to his ex-wife. He was released Jan. 17 by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Cara Connors after agreeing to immediately pay $10,500 of that amount. Connors took over at the beginning of the year from former Circuit Judge Alice Gray, who had ordered Hutchinson jailed on a contempt of court finding.
Part of Hutchinson's plea deal on the tax and bribery charges involved his agreement to testify against his co-conspirators, including Tommy Ray Goss, the former chief financial officer of Preferred Family Healthcare, and Goss' wife, Bontiea Bernedette Goss, the former chief operating officer. That trial, which was originally set for June 10, 2019 in Springfield, Mo., was eventually pushed back to Oct. 3, 2022, but was canceled less than a week before it was to begin when both Gosses pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy counts.
Hutchinson's sentencing hearing today is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m.