Judge OKs sealed motion for Gillean

CONWAY - A judge agreed Friday to let defense attorneys for former University of Central Arkansas Chief of Staff Jack Gillean file a sealed motion relating to evidence in the growing commercial-burglary case against him.

“I have no idea what sort of bombshell we’re going to have in this motion,” Judge Charles E. Clawson Jr. said in making his decision in Faulkner County Circuit Court.

While “the public’s right to know is important, the defendant’s right to a fair trial may trump that sometimes,” Clawson said.

Defense attorney Tim Dudley had argued that release of the motion could prejudice prospective jurors against Gillean, 57, if they learned of its contents before the trial.

The ruling came one day after Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland filed a sixth count of felony commercial burglary against Gillean, who is charged in a test-cheating scandal at UCA.

Gillean, also a former deputy attorney general for the state, faces additional charges of fraudulent insurance acts, a felony, and issuing a false financial statement, a misdemeanor.

His trial, scheduled to start March 10 in Van Buren County Circuit Court in Clinton, will focus on the commercial-burglary charges. The other counts are to be tried later.

The sealed defense motion must be filed by March 3, Clawson said. Jury selection in the trial is set for March 6-7, and Clawson said he would take up the motion on one of those days. He said after Friday’s hearing that he would allow the motion to be released then unless he decides otherwise.

After consulting with an-other defense attorney, Dudley said there probably will be only one such motion but that it “will cover a number of subjects.”

The judge noted that he already had taken “the extraordinary step” of moving the trial from Conway to Clinton because of pretrial publicity. Both counties are in the 20th Judicial District.

No one objected to sealing the motion during the brief hearing Friday, which was held to reconsider the issue at the defense’s request. In October, Clawson had denied a similar request. Both times, the prosecution said the decision was one for the court to make.

Dudley specifically complained about a newspaper article reporting the prosecution’s request in October for Gillean to be drug-tested. Clawson denied that request, which Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Troy Braswell made orally in open court.

“I think that’s terribly prejudicial to Mr. Gillean,” Dudley said Friday.

Dudley also said he rarely asks judges to reconsider decisions. But he added, “The issue is just so critically important” to having a fair trial.

He said he had counted seven articles in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since the October hearing. He said he had not counted the articles in the Log Cabin Democrat, a Conway newspaper.

The additional commercial-burglary count filed Thursday accuses Gillean or an accomplice of entering or remaining unlawfully in UCA’s Lewis Science Center with the purpose of stealing an exam. Six times now, the charging document states the purpose of the alleged burglaries was “Theft of property: exam.”

The newest charge says the unlawful entries took place on or about March 13, 2011, through April 1, 2011. The other commercial burglary counts also relate either to Lewis Science Center or Laney Hall and cover a period from February 2011 through early May 2011.

Gillean resigned from his UCA job June 15, 2012, after UCA President Tom Courtway asked him about a “grandmaster” key given to police by Cameron Stark, now a former student.

The prosecution contends that Gillean gave Stark UCA-issued keys and a key card, knowing that Stark intended to use them to steal tests from professors’ offices.

Stark has been given immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony, as have three other people, according to court records. Gillean resigned about a week after UCA police said Stark broke into the university’s financial-aid office and stole four prescription pills from an employee who has since been fired.

Gillean’s departure prompted UCA to review and make changes in the handling of financial aid and scholarships, as well as campus security issues.

Reacting to the Gillean scandal and to the previous, unrelated resignations of two presidents who later were convicted of crimes, UCA officials also installed a fraud hotline that employees and others can use anonymously.

The presidents who resigned under pressure, Lu Hardin and Allen Meadors, entered guilty pleas - Hardin to federal felonies and Meadors to a state misdemeanor.