A panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday upheld a more than 8½-year sentence for former Little Rock police officer Mark Anthony Jones. He admitted to helping escort a load of marijuana across the city in 2012 -- but later said he did so only because the FBI dangled an irresistible wad of cash in front of him.
Jones, 47, argued at his sentencing hearing in late October that because he cooperated with prosecutors, he was entitled to a sentence below the 97- to 121-month penalty range recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.
U.S. District Judge James Moody, who has since retired, rejected that request and instead imposed a 104-month sentence. The judge explained that Jones didn't seem remorseful, ignored an emergency dispatch to carry out the crime while on duty, and later made inconsistent statements about what led him to participate in the crime.
Jones pleaded guilty on June 28, 2013, to a charge of attempting to aid and abet the possession with intent to distribute 1,000 pounds of marijuana on March 22, 2012. By pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, he saw several other charges dismissed and avoided facing a federal jury last summer alongside his half-brother, former Little Rock officer Randall Tremayn Robinson.
Jones and Robinson were jointly accused of agreeing to use their police cars to follow two vans that Jones was told each contained a 500-pound shipment of marijuana. Boxes inside the vans actually contained only a small amount of marijuana, and the delivery was really an FBI sting operation monitored by air and ground surveillance. An FBI agent testified that the operation was precipitated by numerous complaints to the FBI over a period of years that the half brothers were "dirty cops."
A federal jury deadlocked last summer on whether to convict Robinson on charges stemming from the sting operation, but convicted him of selling a half-pound of marijuana to an informant in 2009. Robinson was acquitted of the sting-operation charges two weeks ago after a retrial, but the second jury convicted him of a new charge of making false material statements to the FBI during its 2012 investigation.
He is to be sentenced Oct. 3 on both convictions.
During both of Robinson's trials, defense attorney Bill James argued there was no proof that Jones ever told Robinson why he wanted Robinson to follow one of the two vans. James also argued there was no proof that Jones ever passed on to Robinson half -- or any -- of the $10,000 cash that Jones was filmed taking from a former drug dealer who was cooperating with the FBI. Jones was a 26-year veteran of the department and had authority over Robinson, an 11-year veteran.
In affirming Moody's decision to sentence Jones within the guideline range, the 8th Circuit panel noted that the judge acknowledged Jones' good record with the Police Department, his lack of criminal history and the credibility of witnesses who testified about his good character. The panelists said Moody nonetheless reasoned that Jones "abandoned what was a commendable career in law enforcement" to make money assisting in drug trafficking, cited the seriousness of a police officer using his position of trust in the community to further a crime, noted a need for deterrence and considered other sentences given in similar circumstances.
The panel -- Chief U.S. Circuit Judge William Jay Riley of Omaha, Neb., Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Melloy of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and U.S. Circuit Judge Bobby Shepherd of El Dorado -- noted that district judges have "wide latitude" to assign weight to various factors to determine a sentence.
Also on Tuesday, James filed motions in district court on Robinson's behalf asking that his false-statement conviction be vacated, saying it wasn't supported by the weight of the evidence and alleging that prosecutors only filed the new charge out of "vindictiveness" after the mistrial. James also complained that prosecutors told the second jury about the marijuana conviction from the earlier trial, saying they did so only to cast Robinson "in a negative light."
Metro on 07/02/2014