Former state senator and lobbyist Gilbert Baker's federal jury trial, scheduled to begin Oct. 28 in Little Rock, was postponed Tuesday until April 27.
Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. set the new date after Baker's attorney asked earlier Tuesday for a postponement, saying he has to review more than 79,000 pages of discovery items he has received from federal prosecutors.
Attorney Blake Hendrix of Little Rock also said he has another trial scheduled to begin the same day.
Baker, 62, of Conway was indicted in January on single counts of bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery, and seven counts of wire fraud, in a reported scheme involving a nursing home owner and a former judge.
The charges stemmed from an investigation that led former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Michael Maggio to plead guilty to bribery in January 2015. Maggio, 57, later tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his plea, and in July 2017, he began serving a 10-year prison sentence.
Hendrix said in a motion filed Tuesday that the information he has received from the government in electronic form is "voluminous," necessitating more time to prepare. He said he consulted federal prosecutors on the case, and they have no objection to the delay request.
Baker was a state senator from 2001 until mid-January 2013. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and is a former chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. He is also a former top executive at the University of Central Arkansas.
The investigation grew out of Maggio's July 10, 2013, ruling to trim a jury's $5.2 million judgment against a Greenbrier nursing home to $1 million in the death of patient Martha Bull of Perryville.
Two days earlier, the nursing home owner wrote 10 $3,000 checks on his behalf to 10 political action committees after Baker faxed him the PACs' names. Maggio's campaign ultimately got several thousand dollars but not all of the PAC donations.
Baker has pleaded innocent.
Metro on 08/07/2019