Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Jury acquits Baker of bribery charge
After nearly four days of deliberation, a jury of eight women and four men on Thursday found former Republican state Sen. Gilbert Baker innocent on one count of conspiracy to commit bribery involving a former circuit judge.
Baker, 64, of Conway also was charged with one count of bribery and seven counts of honest-services wire fraud, but jurors deadlocked on those counts. Although Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Peters said the government intends to retry Baker on the other counts, no official motion to do so had been filed in federal court by Thursday afternoon.
Baker, a former political fundraiser and past chairman of the state Republican Party, was accused of acting as a middleman to bribe former Faulkner County Circuit Judge Mike Maggio to reduce a $ 5.2 million jury award against Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in 2013 in a lawsuit filed by the family of Martha Bull. Bull died two weeks after being admitted for a one-month re
habilitation stint at the center, which is owned by Michael Morton of Fort Smith.
Maggio pleaded guilty to bribery in 2015 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Morton has not been charged with any crimes and has denied any wrongdoing in the matter.
At the time of the Bull lawsuit, Baker worked as a lobbyist and fundraiser for the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, in addition to his outside fundraising and lobbying activities on behalf of conservative candidates and causes.
During the trial, jurors heard from Morton, Maggio, associates and former associates of Baker, Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Rhonda Wood, former U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland, and the attorney who set up eight political action committees for Baker that were among 10 PACS that received donations from Morton that were intended for Maggio.
Although Baker’s oldest son, Stephen, testified in his father’s defense, Baker did not testify.
A hiccup occurred before the trial had even begun after a juror tested positive for the coronavirus between jury selection on July 23 and the trial’s opening on July 25, and had to be replaced with one of three alternate jurors.
Four days into the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Harris left at the end of the day reporting that he felt ill, resulting in the trial’s suspension for one day while Assistant U.S. Attorney John Ray White prepared to step in. But, after Harris also tested positive for covid-19, the trial was suspended another day to allow all participants, including jurors, to be tested for the virus. All of the tests came back negative.
White assisted Peters as co-counsel until the end of the trial.
The case itself was complex, with no clearly defined “smoking gun” in evidence to connect a myriad of dots that prosecutors said pointed to Baker’s guilt. Jurors heard testimony related to phone records showing clusters of phone calls and texts between Baker and Maggio and between Baker and Morton on and around relevant times in the government’s case. But, without recordings of the calls or printouts of the text messages — which had been deleted in what Baker’s attorneys said were routine mass data deletions — the actual substance of those communications could not be proven.
In an effort Tuesday afternoon to avoid a possible hung jury, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. took the unusual step of instructing the jury to get a good night’s sleep and return to court the next morning ready to work after he was told that the panel had deadlocked. The move, known as an “Allen Charge,” is commonly referred to as “dynamiting” the jury to break a stalemate. Although some states consider an Allen Charge coercive and prohibit its use, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its use in an 1896 ruling in Allen v. U.S.
At 1:30 p.m. Thursday, Marshall told attorneys for both sides of the jury’s decision to abandon efforts to reach a consensus in the eight remaining counts on the indictment.
“We do not anticipate any additional time will result in any additional unanimous decisions,” Marshall read from a note sent by the jury foreman. “Please advise for further instructions.”
Defense attorney Blake Hendrix and Peters agreed that the jury should fill out the verdict form for the unanimous decision on the conspiracy count but parted ways beyond that.
“Of course, we would move for a mistrial on the remaining counts,” Hendrix said.
“I agree as to count one,” Peters said. “As to the other counts, if they can’t reach a verdict, we’ll have to retry them.”
Peters and Hendrix agreed that it would be counterproductive to compel the jury to continue its deliberations.
At the announcement of the innocent verdict, Baker took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes for a moment, but otherwise did not react. His wife, Susan, who has attended the trial every day since July 23, let out a brief but audible gasp.
“I’m very grateful that it’s over,” Susan Baker said tearfully as court adjourned. “I’m very grateful for our defense team.”
Baker expressed his happiness with the verdict and said the support of family and friends had sustained him since the indictment and through the trial.
“I’m especially grateful for the support that my family — especially my wife, Susan — has given me,” he said. “I’m grateful to friends who expressed their support and their prayers.”
Baker said he believed he had received as fair a trial as possible and that he felt partially vindicated by the outcome.
“I had a judge that was fair, thorough and thoughtful,” he said. “The jury worked hard and even the prosecution, they had a job to do and they did that job. They fulfilled their responsibilities in a very professional manner.”
Hendrix acknowledged that — innocent verdict notwithstanding — Baker’s legal travails could be far from over.
“It will be up to the government to decide if they’ll retry him on the remaining counts or not,” he said. “The ball is completely in their court.”
Hendrix said if Baker is retried, he and co-counsel Annie Depper will continue to represent him.
“Absolutely,” he said. “He’s lived with this for eight years, and we’ve lived with it for two-and-a-half, so we’ll carry on.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Allison Bragg, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said a final decision on retrying the counts has not been made but is under review. Prosecutors have filed a motion asking the court to allow them to contact and speak with jurors about the deliberations.
“We’ll review it and evaluate it,” Bragg said. “Hopefully we’ll get to visit with jurors about it depending on whether the court authorizes that, but right now that is our position, to retry it.”
Rosey Perkins, one of Bull’s daughters, expressed her disapproval with the outcome and said she hopes prosecutors will continue to pursue Baker on the remaining counts.
Perkins attended the trial each day but had to be away Wednesday and Thursday. She spoke by phone with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Thursday.
“I just think it’s an unjust verdict,” Perkins said. “I hope like you-know-what that Julie Peters intends to take it and retry it. … I feel like people put a price on a life, and my mama’s life was worth a whole lot more to us than $5.2 million. I’ll just leave it at that.”
Although a number of courthouse employees found the extended deliberations unusual, some even suggesting that it might be a record for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Jim McCormack, who served as court clerk for 24 years before his retirement July 1, said that in a few trials in the past, jury deliberations went on for a week or longer.
“It’s certainly not a record,” McCormack said. “What’s unusual about this is it only had eight charges so I think people may have thought the verdict would come in sooner. This one’s not typical, but it’s not unusual either.”