CONWAY — Federal investigators have questioned Fort Smith businessman and campaign financier Michael Morton as part of a bribery investigation involving an ousted judge, a former legislator and a 76-year-old woman who died in one of Morton’s nursing homes.
“Mr. Morton has cooperated with all requests by federal investigators, including interviews,” his spokesman, Matt DeCample, said in an email interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Asked whether that statement meant investigators had, in fact, interviewed Morton, DeCample said, “Correct.”
In January, former Circuit Judge Michael Maggio pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Little Rock to a federal bribery charge and implicated two other people — a nursing home owner and a fundraiser — in his plea agreement.
That agreement did not identify those implicated by name. But Morton owns the Greenbrier nursing home where Martha Bull’s death in April 2008 led to a negligence lawsuit at the heart of the criminal investigation, and former state Sen. Gilbert Baker helped raise money for Maggio’s later-halted campaign in 2014 for the Arkansas Court of Appeals.
Thomas Buchanan, the attorney representing Bull’s daughters, said late Monday that Morton and Baker in separate depositions have given “two different versions of the story.”
“It will be up to other folks to determine whose version to believe or not, or if there’s a third version that is even more believable,” Buchanan said.
Buchanan declined to discuss how the men’s depositions differ.
Neither Morton nor Baker has been charged with a crime, and both have denied wrongdoing. In October, the FBI confirmed it was investigating contributions made to Maggio’s appeals-court campaign through political action committees funded almost entirely by Morton and his companies.
That investigation continues. Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris said he had “no updates” on the case.
Lauren White Hoover, who represents Maggio, declined to say what type of job, if any, Maggio holds.
“I do not have any comments about Mr. Maggio’s personal life or the ongoing investigation,” she said in an email.
Reminded that employment was part of Maggio’s release conditions, she replied, “So noted and still no comment.”
Maggio did not return a phone message or an email seeking comment.
On the civil side, several potential trial witnesses — including a retired federal judge — have been scheduled for questioning by attorneys for Bull’s daughters, who have filed a second lawsuit now pending in Faulkner County Circuit Court in Conway.
This complaint accuses Morton and Baker of conspiring to bribe Maggio in exchange for Maggio’s lowering of a jury’s judgment in the earlier negligence lawsuit from $5.2 million to $1 million July 10, 2013. Maggio took that action after Morton sent $24,000 in checks dated July 8, 2013, to eight political action committees, seven of which later donated to Maggio’s campaign.
Last week, lawyers for Bull’s daughters scheduled depositions for PAC creator Chris Stewart, Morrilton lobbyist Bruce Hawkins, Baker associate Linda Leigh Flanagin and others, according to online court records. Retired U.S. District Judge James Moody is scheduled for a deposition Thursday.
Hawkins did not return a phone message seeking comment. Stewart declined comment, and Flanagin’s attorney, Paul James, declined comment.
Buchanan said Stewart “was very truthful” in his deposition and said Stewart’s account goes along with what the lawsuit’s plaintiffs contend.
According to Buchanan, Stewart “said that the PAC situation was Gilbert Baker’s idea and Gilbert Baker controlled where the funds went.”
Based on a deposition notice Buchanan filed, it appears the defense plans to call Moody as an expert witness. The notice advises Moody to bring his resume, any documents he has reviewed in the case, and a copy of any information reflecting compensation he has or will get for his services.
Baker’s civil attorney, Richard Watts, said in an email to the Democrat-Gazette that his client “answered all questions asked in his deposition” last month.
DeCample said that during Morton’s deposition, Morton “answered every question directly” and “never invoked his Fifth Amendment rights.”
Baker did not return a phone or email message seeking comment, but University of Central Arkansas Provost Steve Runge said in an email that Baker is scheduled to return to his music-teaching position there for the fall semester at an annual salary of $51,510.
Baker, a Conway Republican, took leave without pay from the UCA job during the spring semester and reported in a financial-disclosure document that he was a lobbyist for North Carolina-based RAI Services Co. and an Illinois-based finance company.
RAI is the parent company of, among others, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co.
Asked whether Baker intends to continue lobbying while teaching at UCA, Watts said he did not know Baker’s plans.
In an email, UCA spokesman Fredricka Sharkey said, “Mr. Baker, like any other state employee, is free to pursue any outside activities so long as he is not using state resources or at a time he is engaged in his faculty responsibilities.
She said full-time faculty members also should comply with the faculty handbook’s provision on outside employment.
Special Circuit Judge David Laser of Jonesboro has set Sept. 15 for the cutoff date for discovery in the lawsuit. He has set a pretrial hearing for on or about Dec. 15.
Maggio is to be sentenced Nov. 20.
Ken Gallant, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law, said Monday that it’s “a double-edged sword” when there are parallel civil and criminal cases involving some of the same parties.
“There are some prosecutors in the world who think it’s useful to have a civil suit at the same time” a criminal investigation is underway, he said.
“There are other prosecutors who think it could be a problem, and both sides have a point.”
A Section on 08/11/2015