Investigation of sheriff gets special prosecutor
BENTONVILLE — Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren swore in Jason Barrett on Monday to oversee the criminal investigation of Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck.
The special prosecutor’s first act was to draft an order to open court records regarding his appointment. The court records did not reveal why Cradduck is under investigation. Employee grievance complaints filed against the sheriff last week claim there is an Arkansas State Police investigation regarding the improper hiring of a jail employee, including an attempt to pay him for time he did not work.
Cradduck last week denied those allegations and any other wrongdoing. Text and telephone messages to Cradduck were not returned Monday. Telephone messages and an email to the sheriff’s office also were not returned.
Barrett is one of two special prosecutors on staff at the state Office of the Prosecutor Coordinator. That office provides assistance to prosecuting attorneys and to crime victims around the state.
Barrett also is the special prosecutor in the case against Johnnie Bryan Hunt Jr. Hunt, 57, is the son of the late J.B. Hunt Sr., who founded J.B. Hunt Transport Services in Lowell. Hunt pleaded innocent last month to assaulting a motorist. Hunt is charged with aggravated assault, a Class D felony punishable by up to six years in prison.
Benton County Prosecuting Attorney Nathan Smith said last week he was notified Oct. 6 about possible wrongdoing by Cradduck. He requested an investigation by the Arkansas State Police. Smith also requested to withdraw from the case since his office works with the sheriff. Smith would not comment on whether the investigation had anything to do with the allegations in the employee grievances.
Removing a prosecuting attorney from a case requires a court order. Karren granted the request Oct. 21 and sealed it pending appointment of a special prosecutor, court records show.
“There will not be any information in the court file until and unless the special prosecutor requests an arrest warrant,” Smith said Monday of the particulars of the investigation. There is no set time for the special prosecutor to complete his work, he said.
Special prosecutors are usually a court-appointed prosecuting attorney from another judicial district.
“We usually ask the Washington County prosecutor to do that for us when we need one,” Smith said. “In fact, Matt Durrett is handling one of our other cases now. Washington and Benton County have become so intertwined, though, I wanted someone more removed.”
Barrett’s name was given when Smith called Bob MacMahon, director of the Prosecutor Coordinator’s Office, in October for a recommendation.
Barrett’s swearing-in took place in Karren’s courtroom in the Benton County Courthouse Annex building in Bentonville shortly after 8 a.m. Monday. The process and a short discussion about releasing records afterward
took about five minutes. Smith was present.
Barrett, who lives in Pulaski County, agreed to Karren’s request to a draft court order to unseal the records. The order was drafted and signed by the judge by midafternoon Monday.
On Friday, a grievance was filed by Capt. Jeremy Guyll, who oversaw the county jail, alleging wrongful demotion and seeking protection under the Arkansas Whistle-Blower Act.
Guyll said in his filing that he was wrongfully demoted because he reported to state police that Cradduck had ordered a former lieutenant at the jail to falsify the time and pay records of Gabriel Cox, a newly hired employee at the jail.
County employment records, obtained under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, show that Cox had listed as his place of residence the same Rogers address listed for Cradduck.
Robin Holt, the former lieutenant at the jail, filed a grievance Thursday. Her grievance says Cradduck wrongfully demoted her after she refused to falsify the payroll records and reported Cradduck’s order to Guyll, a superior.
Holt said in her complaint that she was twice interviewed by a state police investigator. She was demoted to deputy and her pay was reduced when Cradduck learned of the investigation and her possible involvement, according to the grievance.
Holt and Guyll said in their filings that Cradduck ordered employment records to be backdated to the week before Cox was hired so Cox would be paid for time he was not employed. Holt reported Cradduck’s order to Guyll, telling him she was refusing to comply with the order, and Guyll supported her in that decision and notified the state police, the filings say.
Guyll’s grievance says Cradduck was interviewed by state police at his home Oct. 13. That day, the grievance says, Cradduck called Guyll, telling him he had just been interviewed. Cradduck was “extremely mad and asked what Captain Guyll knew about the investigation,” the filing says.
Cradduck sent Guyll and other employees a text message after his interview “stating he was going to put the employees ‘on the box,’ a term referring to polygraph testing, so that he can determine the identity of the whistleblowers,” according to the filing.
Guyll’s grievance also says Cradduck called Guyll into his office Oct. 14 and ordered Guyll to tell him everything about the investigation. Cradduck told Guyll that “if the sheriff lost his job over the investigation then Captain Guyll would also lose his job,” according to the filing.