Suspect facing forgery case

A 20-year-old Little Rock murder suspect has been charged with 141 counts of forgery after Hope police reported finding him with $2,850 in counterfeit $20 bills.

After his arrest, Randtrel Kendri Carruthers was subsequently charged with furnishing prohibited items when Hempstead County deputies recorded him on video hiding marijuana in the county jail.

He is due to be arraigned on the Class C felony charges, which together carry up to 1,420 years in prison, on Dec. 11 in Hempstead County circuit court. He was arrested in September, but charges were filed last week.

In Little Rock, Carruthers is accused of the September 2016 slaying of Malik Mumit. The 45-year-old Mumit was found shot in the front yard of a home in the 1700 block of Pinewood Drive by Little Rock police investigating reports of gunfire.

Carruthers was arrested that night after running from detectives who wanted to question him about Mumit’s slaying. Police caught him about three blocks away and he subsequently pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fleeing after spending 11 days in jail.

But he was not arrested in Mumit’s death until August, when the Little Rock Police Department’s cold-case squad took over the investigation. Pulaski County prosecutors are reviewing the evidence to decide whether to file formal murder charges.

Carruthers was jailed for three days in Pulaski County after his arrest in Mumit’s death; he was released after posting $500,000 bond on Aug. 24, court records show.

Hope police reported that they encountered Carruthers about 3 a.m. on Sept. 23 near the Southview Apartments at 1307 E. Third St. while investigating a complaint about drug dealing involving a white BMW and a dark Chevrolet Impala at the apartments. Police pulled over the Impala for having a defective license-plate light, the arrest report states.

Smelling marijuana in the vehicle, police searched the car and its occupants. Carruthers, the front-seat passenger, was found to have 141 obviously bogus $20 bills in his pants pocket, the report stated.

“Immediately upon touching the money, Officer [Hunter] Halliday knew the bills to be counterfeit due to the texture of the bills not being consistent with U.S. currency,” the report stated. “Officer Halliday also observed the bills to not be cut properly and the ink used was of low quality.”

Police also found 60 grams of suspected marijuana, about 2 ounces, in the car along with a loaded .380-caliber pistol and a loaded 9mm pistol, apparently belonging to another passenger, Finus Brown, according to the report. Brown was arrested, but the report does not say whether he was charged.

Carruthers was cuffed with his hands behind his back and placed in a patrol car while police searched the Impala.

But he was seen to be making “furtive movements” in the back seat, which concerned officers that he might be trying to hide something, the report states. Carruthers was found to have moved his restrained hands in front of him.

Officers again put his hands behind him and searched the patrol car but found nothing. The car was searched again after Carruthers was taken to jail, but again nothing was found.

But the smell of marijuana in the car led to a third search hours later after police reviewed video surveillance that showed a squirming Carruthers moving his hands to his front then leaning “for several minutes” against the partition separating the front and back seats of the patrol car. This led police to look under the front passenger seat of the patrol car where they found a bag containing 62 grams, about 2 ounces, of suspected marijuana, the report states.

Carruthers was subsequently charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession and obstructing governmental operations.

After Carruthers was booked into jail, deputies in the booking section started smelling marijuana and searched the area and found suspected marijuana hidden beside the booking bench, the second arrest report states. A review of surveillance video from the jail showed Carruthers on the bench appearing to stuff something into the area where the suspected contraband was discovered, the report states.

In a subsequent interview with deputies, Carruthers admitted to hiding the drugs there.