Gillean mum on how student got UCA key, Courtway says

CLINTON - University of Central Arkansas President Tom Courtway testified Tuesday that he repeatedly urged former Chief of Staff Jack Gillean to explain how then-student Cameron Stark got Gillean’s master key that was used in a series of campus burglaries, but that Gillean would not and resigned instead.

Courtway was the last witness to testify in Van Buren County Circuit Court before the prosecution rested its case in the commercial-burglary trial of Gillean, who resigned June 15, 2012, as details of a test-cheating scandal began to emerge at the university.

The prosecution contends that Gillean, 57, repeatedly gave Stark, 25, two UCA-issued keys and his key card with the knowledge that Stark, then a biology major, intended to use them to enter professors’ offices and steal tests. Stark testified Monday that Gillean accompanied him on the first theft in February 2011.

The defense contends that Stark either stole the keys or Gillean’s former live-in lover, Ryan Scott, possibly gave them to Stark.

Scott testified Tuesday that he had seen Gillean give Stark the keys “multiple times” and that he would not have given Stark the keys without Gillean’s knowledge.

While Courtway was on the stand, he recalled putting Gillean on paid leave on June 13, 2012, just days after a weekend drug theft in which Stark used Gillean’s key to enter McCastlain Hall.

“He did not say a word except, ‘I understand,’ and went home,” Courtway said of Gillean.

Two days later, Courtway and Graham Gillis, UCA’s associate vice president of human resources, met with Gillean and offered to play an audio recording in which a Conway man, Jeff Scarborough, backed up Stark’s statements that Gillean had voluntarily given Stark the key with the knowledge that Stark would use it to steal tests.

“I said, ‘We’ve worked together a long time, and I’ve got a lot of respect for you,’”Courtway remembered telling Gillean.

Upon offering to play the recording, Courtway testified that Gillean said, “I don’t want to listen to it.Go ahead and do what you’ve got to do.”

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Courtway said he told Gillean that he would, but “I told him, ‘Argue with me,’” and asked, “‘Is something going on here I’m not seeing?’”

Instead, Courtway testified, Gillean said he would go ahead and resign.

Courtway said under cross-examination by defense attorney Tim Dudley that he asked Gillean if he had given the key to Stark but Gillean “didn’t answer.”

Courtway said he was prepared to fire Gillean at that meeting.

Dudley asked Courtway about whether he had known about what the defense says is conflicting information from Stark and Scarborough, and whether Courtway knew that Gillean had earlier told a police detective that he did not give Stark the key.

Courtway said he did not know about any conflicting information and did not recall whether the detective had told him about Gillean’s denial.

In follow-up questions, Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Troy Braswell asked Courtway if he hated Gillean.

Courtway said he did not.

His voice slightly trembling, Courtway added, “June 15, 2012, was the hardest professional day I have ever experienced on this earth.”

The trial recessed early Tuesday so that attorneys could work on jury instructions, which normally are given to jurors just before they begin deliberations.

Sam Perroni, who also represents Gillean, said the defense would decide this morning whether Gillean will testify.

Earlier Tuesday, Scott, who is in his early 20s, testified that he and Gillean had lived together twice since they met through an online advertisement that Scott had placed on Craigslist in 2010. Scott, who was not a UCA student when the burglaries occurred, said Gillean gave his UCA-issued keys to Stark “multiple” times.

“It happened all the time,” Scott testified.

Under cross-examination, Scott said Stark also knew where Gillean kept the keys at home.

At one point, Scott exhaled deeply and said he never gave Stark the keys. Later, though,he said he might have but that he would not have done so without Gillean’s knowledge. Scott said he did not remember seeing Gillean’s key card, which the prosecution contends Gillean also lent to Stark.

Scarborough, a former Marine, said he met Stark,also an ex-Marine, through a nonprofit military group. Scarborough later met Gillean through Stark. Scarborough said he had told Stark “many times” to study harder.

Subpoenas listed on a court-affiliated website had spelled Scarborough’s name Scarbrough, but he stated the correct spelling in testimony Tuesday.

Under cross-examination, Scarborough said that during a visit on his porch, Stark told him that he didn’t have to worry about his grades anymore. “He said, ‘I have the master’” key, Scarborough testified.

“I said, ‘Where did you get that key?’” Scarborough said in earlier testimony. Stark replied that he had gotten it from Gillean, according to Scarborough.

Scarborough recalled warning both men that they could get in trouble.

He said he told Gillean: “‘I’m aware that you gave him [Stark] the key.’”

Gillean’s “response was more a nervous laughter,” as if he was “kind of caught offguard that I brought that up,” Scarborough said.

Also Tuesday, UCA student Jared Santiago testified under immunity from prosecution. He said Stark shared the stolen exams with him and that he once “held the door” and “looked out” while Stark stole an organic-chemistry test.

Santiago said he never saw Stark and Gillean exchange keys but noted that Stark couldn’t get the keys for a time when Gillean was angry because Stark had wrecked Gillean’s motorcycle.

Santiago said he told Stark, “‘You need to patch things up’” with Gillean, and that the two later did.

Santiago, a biology major,said that sometime after the spring semester of 2011, Stark ended up with Gillean’s keys permanently after apparently stealing them.

Santiago also related how Stark had given him the keys and that he was preparing to steal a test, but “my conscience really hit me” inside the building. Santiago said he ended up not stealing the test.

“At that point, it wasn’t a game anymore,” Santiago said. He said that’s when he quit drinking as much and started “becoming the person my parents” raised him to be.

Another witness, Conway Police Department detective Brian Williams, testified Tuesday that he examined two cellphones that belonged to Stark. How much information can be obtained from a cellphone depends on the phone, he said.

Williams said he found 439 texts exchanged between Stark and Gillean from Feb. 28, 2011, to Sept. 2, 2011, on Stark’s iPhone. Of those, 158 were deleted text messages.

On another Stark phone were 280 texts that the two men exchanged between Oct. 25, 2011, and May 30, 2012, Williams said. He said he could not recover any deleted messages from that phone.

Williams said, on the basis of his experience, there were probably “a lot more” deleted messages on the iPhone.

Under cross-examination, Williams said he recovered a total of 10,862 text messages from Stark’s iPhone and more than 15,000 texts from his other phone.

The defense made the point Monday that Stark had told investigators that he and Gillean shared text messages about the keys but that authorities had not found any of those texts on Stark’s phones.

Shortly before the trial recessed Tuesday until 9 a.m. today, Judge Charles Clawson dismissed one juror whose wife had become ill. A man who was one of two alternate jurors replaced him.

Gillean also is charged with one felony count of fraudulent insurance acts and one count of issuing a false financial statement, a misdemeanor. He is to be tried on those charges later.

Clawson moved the trial from Conway to Clinton because of pretrial publicity.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/12/2014

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