U.S. seeks 24- 30-month term in bribery case

Federal prosecutors are recommending that a former Crittenden County juvenile probation officer and West Memphis city councilman be imprisoned for two to 2½ years for his admitted role in a bribery conspiracy involving a state official and a businessman.

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In a sentencing memorandum filed in federal court in Little Rock, a prosecutor cited Phillip W. Carter's prior record, which includes his guilty plea to participating in a vote-buying scheme, the $10,000 to $20,000 involved in the bribery scheme, and his involvement with a public official as reasons he should fall into a penalty range of 24 to 30 months.

In May 2013, Carter was sentenced to three years' probation with five months of home detention, and was fined $2,500, after he admitted to participating in an election fraud ploy to ensure that Hudson Hallum, whose campaign for state representative he helped manage, won three special elections in 2011.

Hallum resigned, and also pleaded guilty, along with his father and campaign manager Kent Hallum, and Sam Malone, a police officer and member of the Crittenden County Quorum Court and the county School Board.

On Feb. 18, U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson is set to preside over back-to-back sentencing hearings for Carter and Steven B. Jones, a former deputy director of the state Department of Human Services and state representative, in the bribery case in which both have pleaded guilty.

Prosecutors say Jones accepted cash payments from businessman Ted Suhl of Little Rock, who owned two businesses that provided mental health services to youths, through Carter and a pastor who hasn't been identified. Prosecutors asked last month that Jones, whose duties included overseeing mental health providers, be sentenced to 2½ years in prison. Suhl has pleaded innocent and is awaiting trial.

Carter, 46, was a juvenile probation officer from 2000 through late 2012, and was on the West Memphis City Council from late 2010 through late 2012, according to the government's sentencing memo.

The memo says Jones and Suhl used Carter "as an intermediary to relay messages, schedule meetings, and deliver bribe payments from Suhl to Jones." It says Carter and Jones "frequently spoke in basic code when talking to each other on the telephone and refrained from using Suhl's name."

Although Carter didn't agree to perform official acts as a councilman or probation officer for Suhl, he did use his official positions "to steer or attempt to steer juvenile referrals from the Crittenden County court system or local school districts to Suhl and his businesses," the memo notes.

It adds, "In exchange, [Carter] received periodic payments of cash and other things of value from Suhl. The things of value included employment for [Carter's] spouse with one of Suhl's businesses for over 10 years, during most of which she performed minimal to no work for the business."

The memo says the government isn't asking that Carter's conduct outside of the Jones-Suhl bribery scheme be considered in calculating Carter's penalty range. But the prosecution argued that Carter "is not entitled to a downward departure" from the range recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, which are advisory.

"The record amply reflects that the defendant, though remorseful and contrite, was undoubtedly corrupt for a lengthy period of time," says the memo, filed by Edward P. Sullivan, a trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division in Washington, D.C.

Arguing that Carter and his co-conspirators "sought to enrich themselves at the expense of the public and Suhl's competitors," while "taking substantial steps to conceal their illegal activity," the memo asserts that the scheme constituted "a substantial breach of the public's trust and enormous harm to ADHS [Arkansas Department of Human Services] and the state's Medicaid system."

Anything less than a sentence within the recommended 24- to 30-month range wouldn't adequately reflect the seriousness of the offense, it argues.

Carter's attorney, Bill Stanley of Jonesboro, filed his own sentencing memo Thursday, noting that the vote-buying scheme involving Hallum only came to light because federal agents had been eavesdropping on Carter's phone calls, in connection with the Suhl bribery matter, "and stumbled into the voter fraud scheme." It notes that Carter agreed to assist the government in prosecuting both cases, including "wearing wires and recording conversations and transactions between himself, Steven Jones and Ted Suhl."

Stanley is asking Wilson to impose a sentence below the guideline range, and suggested a sentence of home detention in lieu of prison. Stanley wrote that Carter, "with a limited education was susceptible, due to his friendship with Steven Jones, of being enticed into the scheme to which he has plead guilty."

Carter's guilty plea was to a charge of conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds and honest services wire fraud.

Metro on 02/06/2016

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