A former Garland County water patrol deputy admitted in federal court Monday that he arranged for a teenage girl to travel across state lines for prostitution and later referred other clients to her.
Neil E. Parliment, 39, made the admissions before U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey during a morning hearing on the Arkansas side of the federal building in Texarkana.
Parliment uttered only the word “guilty” when Hickey asked for his plea, and the judge accepted it before ordering Parliment to remain in custody while awaiting sentencing, court officials said. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 20 years in the federal prison system, which doesn’t have parole.
Parliment was arrested June 13 and accused in federal court papers of lining up clients in Hot Springs for the 17-year-old Memphis prostitute, who authorities say was a foster-care runaway from Boston.
Parliment, who also engaged in sexual activity with the prostitute in exchange for payment, was a Garland County sheriff’s deputy at the time, assigned to the marine patrol.
Parliment wasn’t accused of directly using his law-enforcement authority in dealing with the prostitute, but he visited her in uniform, carrying a gun and driving what authorities believed to be an unmarked police sport utility vehicle, according to federal charging documents.
On Monday, Conner Eldridge, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, called the former deputy’s actions an abuse of public trust.
“This activity is unacceptable, and we will continue to bring to justice those individuals who seek to use similar positions to perpetrate crimes,” Eldridge said in a written statement.
Parliment’s plea was made as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, who agreed not to pursue additional charges against him related to his involvement with the prostitute.
In exchange, Parliment waived his right to have a grand jury decide whether to indict him and instead pleaded guilty to the charge filed by Eldridge’s office, a single count of enticement of an individual to travel in interstate commerce for purposes of prostitution.
Reached by phone, Parliment’s attorney, Clay Janske, said it was his understanding that Parliment would not be charged with any additional crimes related to the prostitute being a minor.
“Part of the consideration when we took the plea before indictment was that we were pleading to this as charged and that there would be no other charges deriving out of this, and to our knowledge nothing else that has nothing to do with this,” Janske said.
His client never knew the prostitute was a minor, he said.
Janske said federal agents interviewed Parliment about a number of matters unrelated to the prostitution case, including his involvement in the Lake Hamilton Safe Boating Association, a nonprofit that accepts donations to purchase equipment for the Garland County sheriff’s marine patrol.
Parliment served on the marine patrol and is listed on filings with the Arkansas secretary of state’s office as an organizer of the nonprofit, which federal tax reports show took in more than $380,000 in donations and other revenue between 2007 and 2011, the latest year for which filings are available.
In the past few years, the association has disputed criticism that the marine patrol gave special treatment to its members, who have paid $200, $300 or $750 for respective Silver, Gold and Blue memberships and been given stickers to display on their boats. The association’s newsletter has noted that the stickers are “not in any way a ‘get out of jail free’ card” and don’t allow members to avoid citations.
Federal agents questioned Parliment about his role in the nonprofit, which also goes by the name Lake Hamilton Marine Patrol Association, but Janske said nothing came of it.
“It was more along the lines of ‘Is anything illegal going on there?’ … They didn’t have any information. It was just kind of like was there anything else they needed to know about,” he said.
Federal agents also interviewed three clients whom Parliment was accused of referring to the prostitute, Janske said.
“It doesn’t appear to me that they’re going to bring charges against those three people,” Janske said, noting they likely could only face misdemeanor charges.
In response to questions from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Kenny Elser, chief of the criminal division for the Western District, declined to comment on whether Parliment could face any additional charges.
Elser also declined to comment on whether prosecutors were pursuing charges against three clients Parliment referred to the prostitute. Investigators identified the clients by cross-referencing Parliment’s and the prostitute’s phone records.
Federal agents have not publicly named the three clients but have noted in federal court filings that one was employed as a horse-racing jockey.
The three clients also weren’t noted in Parliment’s plea agreement made public Monday.
According to the plea agreement and affidavits filed in support of Parliment’s arrest, the then-deputy contacted the prostitute by phone in January after one of her clients in Memphis referred him.
During the phone conversation, Parliment asked her to come to Hot Springs to have sex with him, according to federal charging documents. The girl, who turns 18 in August, and Parliment then agreed on a date in early February.
When the teenager arrived in Hot Springs as planned, Parliment met her at a hotel on Lake Hamilton where he told her he worked as a security guard.
He then took her to a hotel room and engaged in sexual activity with her in exchange for payment before setting her up with other clients who also paid her for sex. He also agreed to continue to arrange other clients for the girl on other occasions.
Parliment’s arrangement came to the attention of federal investigators in March when the girl called North Little Rock police to report that a man she said was her pimp had assaulted her at a motel, court documents show.
Officers arrested purported pimp at the motel on charges of marijuana possession. They also took the girl in for questioning and notified FBI Special Agent Michael Boshears.
During questioning, the girl told Boshears and a detecive that her pimp had taken her to Chicago and Atlanta for the purposes of prostitution in the months before but lately they had started focusing on Arkansas because the market wasn’t “saturated” like other places.
She also said she had a good customer in Hot Springs named “Neil,” who was a police officer. The girl provided Boshears with the phone number for the client that she called “Neil Hot Trick.” Agents used phone records to determine that the client was Parliment.
Investigators later used the girl’s phone to text Parliment’s number on the day of his arrest.
“Leaving mem now. got tricks line up? Need to make more $ thsn last time,” the investigators wrote, posing as the prostitute.
Two texts came in reply from Parliment’s phone.
“have 4 but the wont be here till sat,” the first said, followed by: “Wooing on 3 for tomorrow.”
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 07/30/2013