Ex-LR lawman's drug transport case goes to jury

Panel begins deliberations

After just a day and a half of testimony, a federal jury began deliberating late Tuesday afternoon on former Little Rock police officer Randall Tremayn Robinson's fate on five federal charges.

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Chief U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller sent jurors out to deliberate at 4:40 p.m., after about an hour and a half's worth of closing arguments from assistant U.S. attorneys Anne Gardner and Pat Harris, and defense attorney Bill James. Miller sent the panel home for the night at 8 p.m., with instructions to resume deliberations at 9 a.m. today.

It's the second trial for Robinson, who faced four of the five charges at a trial last summer. That trial ended after three days of deliberations, with jurors convicting Robinson on a single charge of selling a half-pound of marijuana in 2009, but deadlocking on his three remaining and more serious charges, all related to an FBI sting operation conducted on March 22, 2012. Since then, a federal grand jury added a charge of lying to FBI agents after the sting operation, leaving four charges for the current jury to decide.

The charges accuse Robinson, 40, of helping his half-brother, former Little Rock police officer Mark Anthony Jones, 47, protect what the officers believed to be a shipment of 1,000 pounds of marijuana as it was transported across town that morning in two vans, while both men were on duty and in uniform. Prosecutors say the brothers each received $5,000 cash for providing the escort, which Jones arranged through a known drug dealer who, unbeknownst to him, was cooperating with the FBI.

Jurors saw a video of Jones, then a 26-year veteran of the Police Department, accepting $10,000 in cash -- in two shrink-wrapped bundles -- later that same day from the informant. Prosecutors say that a short time after accepting the cash, Jones met up with Robinson, an 11-year officer, in a police parking lot, and handed half the money off to him -- although cameras didn't clearly capture the exchange.

That prompted James to caution jurors that Robinson may never have been paid and may never have even known why Jones, a senior officer, ordered him to follow one of the vans.

"This is a case where he got duped by his brother," James told jurors in his closing arguments Tuesday. He said prosecutors "can't prove Randall Robinson had any knowledge of what was going on whatsoever."

Jones, who was accused of providing an escort for illegal shipments on two earlier occasions, as well as the one in which Robinson is accused of participating, avoided trial by pleading guilty and is serving an 8½-year sentence.

James reminded jurors of a recorded statement the night before the sting operation, in which Jones told the informant that he still hadn't talked to Robinson about participating. He said other statements showed that Jones wanted to make $100,000 -- and noted that Jones would be able to acquire that amount sooner if he kept all the escort money for himself.

"There's no evidence he had any idea what was going on, or willingly took part in it," James said, referring to Robinson. "The proof's just not there that he was part of this."

In their closing arguments, prosecutors said other evidence showed that Robinson was clearly aware that he was committing a crime when he was following one of the vans from southwest Little Rock to a storage facility in northwest Little Rock.

Gardner cited a recorded discussion between Jones and the informant before the day of the sting. The informant told Jones that a larger shipment of marijuana was coming into Little Rock than on the previous two occasions, and asked Jones if he could get another officer to help him provide an escort, because the full load wouldn't fit into one van. Jones volunteered his brother, telling the informant he wouldn't trust anybody else.

Jones was recorded saying, "For $5,000, you don't know Randall."

When the informant asked if he was sure his brother would help, Jones replied, "I know my brother."

Gardner also reminded jurors of testimony and surveillance video showing that on the morning of the sting operation, shipping boxes that Jones believed contained marijuana were unloaded from a tractor-trailer rig and placed into two vans as he kept watch in his patrol car, parked nearby. At the same time, she said, Robinson's patrol vehicle was captured on FBI surveillance footage circling a nearby parking lot at Colonel Glenn and Shackleford roads.

Robinson's patrol vehicle moved into position as the loaded vans approached him, she said, and then his vehicle fell in behind one of the vans and stayed there, despite a radio call from dispatchers about a nearby emergency.

Gardner also cited records from "drop phones" that the informant had given Jones, showing that the two brothers used them to talk to each other three times that day -- and never used the phones again.

The brothers were later recorded discussing the events of the day, with Jones saying the operation was "smooth sailing," and Robinson responding, "I got kinda nervous for a minute, though" -- describing the anxiety he felt when other officers responding to the emergency dispatch screeched past him, going the opposite direction, with lights and sirens flashing.

The brothers were recorded discussing the disturbing coincidence of an emergency call occurring at the same time as the escort began, with Jones saying, "At the same time, man. I'm like ... what are the chances of this?"

A couple of months later, Jones was recorded telling the informant that Robinson was too afraid to take part in another escort.

"He ain't doing it," Jones said, citing, "too much pressure."

Gardner told jurors that was an indication that Robinson had already done it once.

Harris told jurors that if Robinson didn't know what was going on when he followed the van, it didn't make sense that he would later tell FBI agents that he didn't follow a van that day.

Metro on 06/18/2014

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