A former prison transport contractor who was convicted last year of sexually assaulting two women he was transporting had his sentencing delayed after his court-appointed attorney requested to be relieved from the case.
Eric Scott Kindley, 53, was accused of sexually abusing the two women as he drove across Arkansas to out-of-state jails in 2014 and 2017. The California man was convicted last year of two counts of violating the women's civil rights -- by forcing one woman to perform oral sex on him and by digitally raping the other while grabbing her breasts.
Kindley also was convicted of a third charge of using a firearm to carry out the assault on the second woman, who said at his trial last year that he repeatedly placed his hand on the gun in his holster, which he wore on his hip, and told her, "It only takes one bullet to the head."
At the beginning of Tuesday's hearing, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. said that although Kindley was scheduled to be sentenced, a motion from his attorney, John Wesley Hall Jr. of Little Rock, had upended the proceedings and necessitated a hearing to determine if the attorney-client relationship had indeed been broken.
What followed was a 90-minute closed hearing, during which Marshall heard from Kindley and Hall. Because records of the hearing were sealed, it is not known what transpired, but at its conclusion, Marshall denied both Hall's motion to withdraw and Kindley's request -- made under seal -- for a new lawyer, ruling that the relationship, though strained was not irrevocably broken.
Marshall set a new sentencing date of July 9 at 10:30 a.m. for Kindley after confirming that the lead attorneys in the case, Fara Gold and Maura White with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in Washington would be able to attend. Gold and White were not in court Tuesday as Marshall had determined their presence would not be required to sort out the attorney-client matter.
Hall, who was appointed to represent Kindley in September 2019 after Christophe Tarver of the Federal Public Defenders Office in Little Rock withdrew, filed the motion a motion June 10, saying that Kindley, "earnestly, and refreshingly respectfully, desires to fire defense counsel before sentencing for ineffective assistance at trial and at sentencing."
A joint status report filed June 1 indicated that all legal issues had been resolved and the sentencing hearing should last about one hour. A sentencing memorandum filed in October, which referred to victim impact statements from both victims as well as an additional 11 women who said they had been assaulted or had a family member assaulted by Kindley, indicated that the government would ask that Kindley be sentenced to life in prison.
Hall noted that Kindley's family had contacted William O. James Jr. with the James Law Firm in Little Rock to participate in the sentencing but was not clear on what role, if any, James would have in the proceedings. Will James, James' son and an attorney with the firm, was in court Tuesday but told Marshall that no appearance had been filed and that the firm had not been retained.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters, who assisted on the case, argued that Kindley's motion amounted to no more than a delaying tactic, saying that he was attempting to stave off a life sentence that was recommended under federal sentencing guidelines.
"This trial happened just before the pandemic," Peters said. "At that time he was satisfied with Mr. Hall and there was a record made about that. He waited until a week before his sentencing date, after all of the objections had been resolved, to file this motion, so it's our position that this really looks like a stalling tactic."
Peters, noting that no motion had been filed claiming ineffectiveness of counsel during Kindley's trial, said that the matter would be more appropriately handled by a post-conviction review. She said the victim statements, although filed last year, gave powerful testimony of the trauma inflicted by Kindley on his victims.
"This defendant personified the criminal justice system for them and told them he was connected to high level people," she said. "Having this sentencing hearing continued like this, we all understand legally what's happening, but for the victims on short notice who are already apprehensive... it's traumatic to them again, they don't understand and for this to be stalled and continued is unfair to them and sends the wrong message."
Peters said that after the trial and the resolution of all legal matters pertaining to the trial, "there is nothing to do now but to honor the rights of victims whose constitutional rights he violated and get on with sentencing."
On March 12, 2020, after a three-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in less than two hours, convicting Kindley on all three counts. During the trial, both women testified that Kindley, while traveling through Arkansas, would use his cellphone to call the nearest jail and get permission to take a prisoner in for a bathroom break. Then, they said, he would ignore his GPS and pretend to be lost on back roads, finally pulling over and parking in dark areas that appeared isolated.
The first woman testified that Kindley didn't let her out, but raped her in the van, without removing her handcuffs, and then drove her to a jail where she was held overnight. Receipts found years later during a search of Kindley's house indicated the Feb. 16, 2014, attack happened along a route that stretched from Prescott to Greenbrier.
The second woman told jurors that Kindley uncuffed one of her hands to allow her to pull down her leggings and urinate, but then threw her against the side of the van and assaulted her. The FBI tracked his cellphone at the time of that assault on Jan. 28, 2017, to an area near Atkins and east of Russellville in Pope County, where records indicated the van was moving slowly or not at all for about 43 minutes.
The women said they didn't report him during stops at other jails because they believed he was a law enforcement officer who was friends with other officers at the jails, and that they wouldn't be believed.
Information for this article was contributed by Linda Satter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.