Maggio laptop seized by FBI

The FBI has seized the office computer used by ousted Circuit Judge Michael Maggio when he was presiding over a lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died at a nursing home owned by Michael Morton, Faulkner County's civil attorney said Friday.

"They took it away with them," County Attorney David Hogue said. "They may still have it. They may not."

The FBI confirmed in October that it was investigating contributions made to Maggio's appeals-court campaign by political action committees funded almost entirely by Morton and his companies.

In a related development Friday, former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that his client, former state Sen. Gilbert Baker, has been cooperating in the investigation.

Neither Maggio nor his attorney, Lauren Hamilton, returned phone and email messages seeking comment Friday. Recently, however, Hamilton said she had no comment when asked if Maggio was cooperating with the FBI.

Morton also did not return phone messages Friday. In an email, attorney Kirk Dougherty wrote, "Mr. Morton denies any wrongdoing in this case but will not comment further on this or any other case in litigation."

Morton gave $24,000 to eight PACs in checks dated July 8, 2013. He has said he did so with the belief that the money was for Maggio's campaign for the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Seven of the eight PACs funded almost entirely by Morton later gave money to the since-halted campaign.

In March, Morton told the Arkansas Ethics Commission staff that he mailed the contributions to Baker's Conway home. In sworn testimony, Morton presented a copy of a FedEx receipt showing the checks arrived there July 9, 2013.

July 8, 2013, also was the date that Maggio heard a plea from the Morton-owned Greenbrier Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center to lower a Faulkner County Circuit Court jury's $5.2 million judgment against the home in the negligence lawsuit resulting from the 2008 death of Martha Bull, 76, of Perryville.

On July 10, 2013, Maggio reduced the judgment to $1 million.

In an email interview, Cummins was asked, "Can you say if Mr. Baker is cooperating with the FBI at this point or whether he has been contacted ... about this case?"

Cummins responded, "From the beginning Gilbert has been cooperative, open and above board with authorities and will continue to be."

Asked if he was including the FBI among those "authorities," Cummins replied, "All authorities."

Earlier Friday, Hogue said two FBI agents showed up at the courthouse in Conway some time ago to get the county-owned laptop that was in Maggio's old office.

The agents then took it to Hogue and "they verified that we owned" it, Hogue said.

"They came in asking for consent to search the laptop," he said. "It was clear to me legally ... that they would have probable cause for a search warrant."

Hogue said he then advised Allen Dodson, county judge of Faulkner County who was out of the office, by telephone to authorize the computer's release.

Neither Hogue nor Dodson could recall exactly when the FBI was there.

Dodson said it might have been a couple months ago, and another employee thought it might have been September. That was when the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Maggio removed from office, months after it stripped him of all cases over an unrelated matter involving contentious online comments he made about women, sex, divorce, bestiality and a legally confidential adoption involving actress Charlize Theron.

"David called and said, 'I'm staring at two gentlemen from the FBI,'" Dodson recalled Friday. "He told me me what" they wanted.

"He said that 'obviously, I think it's legal to do so, and I think you have a duty to do so,'" Dodson said about his conversation with Hogue about handing over the laptop. "I agreed on that. ... It needed my OK because I'm ... the legal custodian of all county property."

Hogue said he told the agents that if they needed anything else from the county to let him know. "But that's where it stopped," he said.

Hogue has previously said the county neither paid for nor reimbursed Maggio for his cellphone.

A civil lawsuit filed Tuesday by Bull's family contended Maggio was "texting or otherwise communicating with Defendant Baker about his [Maggio's judicial campaign] and other matters while sitting on the bench during the Bull trial and post-trial proceedings." The complaint did not detail the content of any such communication.

Baker was executive assistant to University of Central Arkansas President Tom Courtway until Baker resigned from the position in April after being linked to the PACs. He now teaches music at the university in Conway.

Baker's cellphone also is his personal phone, though he has used it to communicate both in phone calls and text messages with the Democrat-Gazette at times regarding UCA business. Still, the newspaper has been unable to get any of that phone's records from UCA or Baker under the Freedom of Information Act despite repeated requests.

In June, Baker told the Ethics Commission staff that he had discussed "many candidates" with Morton and "would have asked Morton in general for Maggio support, but would not have solicited specific amounts from Morton until the judicial window [for fundraising] opened."

That fundraising period did not begin until the fall of 2013.

Hogue said Friday that he did not ask the FBI agents what they were looking for on Maggio's computer.

In April, the Democrat-Gazette obtained under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act hundreds of emails from Maggio's computer, including two sent to him by a juror in the Bull trial. In the first email, less than three hours after the jury returned its findings, juror Jamie DuVall of Conway emailed Maggio to express second thoughts about the unanimous $5.2 million judgment.

"It is my strong belief that awarding this amount of money is wrong," DuVall wrote in part. "Surely, 12 people cannot really award 5.2 million dollars after deliberating a few hours."

A section on 11/22/2014