A former Fayetteville lawyer with two outstanding warrants and about $1 million in civil-court judgments against him was arrested Thursday night in Eureka Springs for purportedly driving while intoxicated.
It was the third DWI arrest - the second in Eurkea Springs - for Gregory Dee Jones, 50, who abandoned his law practice in Fayetteville in 2011 and disappeared after a death threat he reported to police, leaving 4,000 case files behind.
Jones resurfaced in Eureka Springs in July, a month before surrendering his law license in lieu of disbarment proceedings.
Since moving to Eureka Springs, Jones has now twice been charged with public intoxication and twice with driving while intoxicated.
Jones has yet to stand trial on any of those charges.
On Thursday, officer Shannon Hill reported recognizing Jones behind the wheel of a 2005 Toyota Prius on Van Buren Street. Knowing Jones had a suspended driver’s license, Hill pulled over the Prius in the parking lot of Booze Brothers, a liquor store, according to a police report.
Jones also wascharged with driving with a suspended license and having no liability insurance. He posted $4,060 bond Friday and was released from the Eureka Springs jail, said Eureka Springs Police Chief Earl Hyatt.
Hyatt said police were transporting Jones to Fayetteville on Friday afternoon, where he has an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in court after a public-intoxication arrest on Oct. 29, 2011.
Dena Stockalper, chief clerk at Fayetteville District Court, said the bond on the failure-to-appear charge was set at $1,200. That bond hadn’t been posted as of Friday afternoon.
Stockalper said Jones was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Fayetteville on July 20, 2010.
He was found guilty and sentenced Dec. 1, 2010. Jones paid a $400 fine and $300 in court costs.
Jones has a second warrant for failure to appear in court, which was issued after he was charged with leaving the scene of an accident April 2 in Sarasota, Fla., without giving police information.
Jones voluntarily surrendered his law license in lieu of disbarment proceedings, an action the Arkansas Supreme Court accepted Aug.14. In his petition, Jones stated that he wanted to avoid “the expense, stress and publicity of a formal disbarment proceeding.”
Stark Ligon, executive director of the Committee on Professional Conduct, which recommended the action to the Supreme Court, said at the time that the case was unprecedented.
When Jones disappeared in 2011, he left behind some 4,000 files pertaining to 2,000 current and former clients dating back more than 30 years.
Jones practiced law for about 20 years, and his father, Lewis Jones, had files at the firm dating back 10 years before that, Ligon said.
Ligon became the courtappointed receiver of Jones’ files and returned those to clients or their families, shredding files that couldn’t be returned.
Jones has law degrees from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
Washington County Circuit Court records show several lawsuits against Jones.
The largest judgment against him is for $870,500, awarded to Blake Ogden. Jones had handled the estate of Blake Ogden’s father, the late Gregg Ogden. Gregg Ogden founded Athletic World Advertising Inc., a sports calendar company based in Fayetteville.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/23/2013