Judge sentences 2 men for roles in Pope County drug ring

Two men accused of being part of a Pope County drug trafficking organization run by Wesley Gullett, a confessed drug trafficker and white supremacist leader of the New Aryan Empire, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller.

Wesley W. Pierson, 56, of Charleston and Cory S. Donnelly, 34, of Russellville each pleaded guilty in January 2020 to one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Pierson was sentenced to 10 years in the Bureau of Prisons and Donnelly, because of multiple previous felony convictions, was sentenced to 15 years and eight months.

Pierson’s attorney, Christian Alexander of Jacksonville, asked that his client’s role in the drug conspiracy be clarified for the record, noting that Pierson was in the first wave of indictments handed up relatively early in the investigation.

“When we first became involved in this matter, there was not as many defendants as there is now. And as you see in the offense conduct, he’s mentioned one time in 30-some-odd paragraphs,” Alexander said. “He didn’t want the court to believe or anybody else to believe that

he was part of the Aryan Nation or anything like that. All those people came afterward. He was a low-level buyer and supplied a few people … and he didn’t want to be grouped into that group.”

The initial indictment, handed up Oct. 3, 2017, which named 44 defendants, did not contain the later allegations of Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act violations, kidnapping and torture, and an additional 11 defendants who were added through two superseding indictments.

Miller sentenced Pierson to the mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison and imposed a period of five years of supervised release to follow completion of his prison term.

Because of Donnelly’s criminal history, dating back to 2004, Miller elected to sentence him to the low end of the sentencing range at 188 months, rejecting the request of his attorney, Michael Spades Jr. of Little Rock, for a downward variance to 10 years.

Spades said a horrific automobile crash when Donnelly was 16 years old resulted in a profound change in his client’s personality and ability to exercise impulse control. He said Donnelly suffered a crushed vertebrae in the wreck and from that point began to get into trouble.

Spades also sought to separate Donnelly from the white supremacist element of the indictment, stressing that his client’s offenses had only to do with drugs and that no violence was involved.

“There’s kind of two prongs to this case. One is drugs, a lot of drugs. Another prong to the case is violence involving the NAE,” Spades said. “Mr. Donnelly has denied any involvement with that group, and there’s no allegation that he ever had any involvement in it.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Liza Jane Brown rejected the argument that Donnelly’s crash at 16 had any influence over his actions in his late teens, his 20s, and into his 30s.

“While it is tragic that Mr. Donnelly did get into that car accident, if the court does take a look and considers that for one of the factors, there is a section in the back that says you can expect to fully recover within a few weeks of this injury,” Brown said. “I think that’s important to note that it was there and that the treatment for this fracture was essentially the same as a severe back strain.”

Brown also rejected Spades’ contention that Donnelly was a minor player in the conspiracy, saying that when he was arrested, police found 19 pounds of methamphetamine in his possession.

“There are so many pounds of methamphetamine flowing into that small community during this time,” she said, “and Mr. Donnelly is responsible for at least 19 pounds of it.”

Miller, speaking to Donnelly’s father, mother and sister, who were seated in the courtroom, explained why he agreed with Brown but sympathized with their position.

“I can put myself in your shoes and think of how you’re feeling with your son going to prison and he’s looking at almost 20 years,” Miller said. “At our age, what do we tell ourselves, will I ever see my son out again?”

Miller noted that Donnelly since 2004 had been sentenced to a total of 18½ years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections for various crimes but had not served anywhere near that amount of time.

“But 18.5 years of state prison time doesn’t mean 18.5 years,” he said. “It means about a year, maybe two. That’s just the way Arkansas works.

“But when I get to the point where I have somebody who, every time I let them out of prison they try to rob somebody with a gun again or steal another car again, you start thinking maybe it’s time to retire them in prison,” Miller continued. “Leave him there till he’s 60-something years old, let him retire in prison and he’ll be too old to do anything when he gets out.”

Miller said Spade’s argument for a downward variance was motivated by fear that Miller might do that very thing, but that Brown feared he might go easy on Donnelly.

“He knows I’ll do it,” the judge said. “So what he did was he said: ‘Don’t do this, judge. Don’t do this to this guy.’ And Ms. Brown’s response, notice what she said, ‘He was delivering all this meth over in Pope County and in Russellville, keeping everybody high. You got to lock him up.’”

Then, directing his attention to Donnelly, Miller said: “If I give you 15 years, you’ll be almost our age when you get out. I would hope that by the time you get to be 49 … you’ll decide, ‘Nah, I’m not going back out and doing that anymore.’

“Do I know that you’ll do that?” Miller asked. “No. But do I want to give your parents some hope that one day they’ll see you as a free man? Yes.”