Remain in jail, ex-judge ordered
Castleman faces fresh fraud case
A former Pocahontas attorney who served time in federal prison for helping his son mail a live copperhead snake years ago was ordered Wednesday to remain jailed on 2012 methamphetamine charges as he faces new charges in a fraud case.
The new charges of mail fraud and mail-fraud conspiracy accuse Bob Sam Castleman, 62, who lives on a farm between Pocahontas and Imboden, of filing a false insurance claim, resulting in an $18,000 payment for American Indian artifacts he reported stolen from his home while he was first incarcerated in the drug case. He was arrested May 17 by the FBI.
At a hearing Wednesday in which Castleman asked to be released from custody, he insisted his home was burglarized and the insurance claim was legitimate. He blamed the theft of what he said was $150,000 worth of arrowheads and other artifacts on an FBI agent who, Castleman contends, left his house unlocked after arresting him in the drug case.
The FBI and federal prosecutors, however, say that a Corning artifact collector has admitted to lending Castleman expensive artifacts to photograph for the purpose of submission in support of his insurance claim.
In August, The Hartford, a Connecticut-based insurance company, mailed Castleman an $18,121.95 check to cover the reported theft. Prosecutors say Castleman was disappointed in the amount he received, and in September mailed another false claim to the insurance company disputing the price valuations.
In March, the insurance company sent Castleman a $6,000 check to cover his claim for “appraisal work” related to the theft report, according to an indictment handed up June 5 charging the former attorney and district judge with eight counts of mail fraud.
Castleman’s hearing Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes was an attempt to overturn U.S. Magistrate Judge David Young’s May 23 order granting the government’s request to revoke Castleman’s pretrial release on the drug charges on the basis of the new allegations.
At Wednesday’s hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner told the judge that prosecutors have audio recordings of conversations Castleman had with his son while Castleman was free and the son, Robert Jerrod Castleman, was in jail on drug charges. In those conversations, automatically recorded by the jail, Gardner said the elder Castleman discussed his plans to defraud the insurance company. Castleman, however, contends the government misunderstood his words on the recording.
Gardner said the elder Castleman was recorded as
telling his son that “Ole Keith has a heck of a collection, now,” referring to Keith Lane of Corning, who prosecutors say has been cooperating in the fraud investigation.
Moments before Gardner brought up the jail recording, Castleman had denied taking photographs of Lane’s collection of artifacts, saying, “I didn’t even know he had a collection.”
As Gardner’s cross-examination of Castleman continued, he said he didn’t know Lane’s collection was “that valuable.” He also said he had “no idea” how some distinctive items he reported as stolen ended up in Lane’s home. He suggested that Lane may have bought the items from whoever stole them from the Castleman home, not realizing they were stolen.
Castleman, represented by attorney Steven Davis of North Little Rock, also complained to Holmes that he should be set free because he has health problems that cannot be properly treated in the Pulaski County jail, where he is being held on the federal drug charges. Castleman said he has 13 kidney stones in his right kidney that a urologist has told him must be surgically removed because at least five of them are too large for him to pass naturally.
Castleman said the urologist also said he can’t perform a procedure to break up the stones into smaller pieces because the pieces themselves would be too big to pass.
Davis presented testimony from four people, including Deputy Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth Castleman, who attested to Bob Sam Castleman’s well-known love of collecting American Indian artifacts and his propensity for being, in the woman’s words, “not the kind of person who would hurt a fly.” Elizabeth Castleman is Bob Sam Castleman’s niece.
Gardner argued that Castleman presented a danger to the community if allowed to go free until his trial. She noted his conviction in the snake-mailing case and the fact that a crucial witness against him in the drug case, Travis Blaine Perkins, was found shot to death in his Pocahontas apartment in April.
Perkins’ murder occurred just three days before he was to appear in court in Little Rock to negotiate a guilty plea in the case.
No one has been arrested in the death of Perkins, 34, who was one of eight defendants, including Castleman and his son, who were jointly indicted on methamphetamine charges in early 2012.
Among the others indicted was Trisha Louise Milligan, 48, the wife of former Pocahontas Police Chief Chad Milligan. Trisha Milligan pleaded guilty April 18 to a negotiated charge of possessing less than 50 grams of a methamphetamine mixture in 2011. She is scheduled to be sentenced by Holmes at 3 p.m. today.