Sherwood man sentenced to 10 years on drug, gun charges

A Sherwood man was sentenced in federal court Tuesday to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty last year to drug and firearm charges.

The charges against Charles George W. Martin, 36, were contained in a February 2022 indictment on two counts each of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking, and felon in possession of a firearm.

The charges stemmed from a pair of arrests in late 2020 and early 2021 in Pulaski County. According to Martin’s plea agreement, he was pulled over Sept. 17, 2020, by Little Rock police for failing to yield to traffic while turning into the Meadows Crossing Apartments. The agreement said Martin was found to have an active arrest warrant and was shown to be a parolee who was on absconder status.

Martin locked his keys inside the truck as he exited, the document said, telling police they were not allowed to search it. After finding a plastic baggie with suspected methamphetamine and three used syringes in his pocket, police gained entry to the truck and found a plastic baggie containing approximately 55 grams of suspected methamphetamine, a Taurus .40 caliber pistol and drug paraphernalia.

On Jan. 16, 2021, the agreement said, Arkansas State Police stopped a black Chevrolet Yukon SUV on Interstate 630 at the Fair Park exit because of an expired license plate. A search of the vehicle turned up a Taurus Judge .45 Colt/.410 revolver, a backpack containing 80 grams of suspected methamphetamine — some packaged individually — a set of digital scales and plastic baggies.

Despite an extensive criminal history score of 22, which placed Martin into Criminal Category VI, the highest category on the federal sentencing guidelines, Martin’s attorney, Lea Ellen Fowler of North Little Rock, asked U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky to consider a downward variance from the recommended sentencing guideline sentence range of 77 to 96 months in prison on the drug count. Fowler pointed out that Martin had served two years in state custody because the arrests violated his parole and he would have to serve a minimum of five years on the gun charge to run consecutive to the drug charge. She asked for a 24-month downward variance to compensate for the two years he spent on the parole violation.

“The state charges were dropped, so there’s no jail credit to be applied to a state court sentence,” she said. “So, essentially that 24 months that he did on that parole violation … is dead time to him,”

Rudofsky pointed out that Martin’s parole revocation was due to an underlying state criminal conviction that triggered a parole violation when he was charged in state court for the charges that he was ultimately federally indicted for.

“That has consequences here but it also has consequences as a parole violation,” he said. “I don’t know why I would make it so that his offense in terms of a parole violation kind of gets wiped off the charts.”

Fowler countered, saying that Martin was revoked because of the federal indictment in the case but had he not been, he would have been in federal custody instead.

“Even though he was serving a parole violation it would have been concurrent so he would have been getting federal credit for that also,” she said.

Fowler said had it not been for the two years Martin spent in state custody on the parole violation with no federal credit for time served, she would not be asking for the variance.

When asked what she thought an appropriate sentence would be, Fowler said five years on each count for a total of 10 years in prison would be sufficient to address the federal sentencing factors. She did take issue with the gun charge, however, saying that Martin was a drug addict, not a drug trafficker.

“I don’t think Mr. Martin was selling drugs,” she said. “I think he was using drugs.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Gardner disagreed with Fowler’s assessment, saying that over the two arrests Martin was found to be in possession of over 130 grams of methamphetamine and two firearms on top of two previous drug convictions.

“What does that mean?” Rudofsky asked. “What is a user amount?”

“A user amount is one-quarter gram,” Gardner replied. “Anybody with that amount is selling methamphetamine, no question about it.” Fowler disagreed. “Anybody who’s ever known anybody who used meth,” she said, “if you’ve got 80 grams you’re going to use 80 grams. If you’ve got 50 grams … If you have a quarter gram you’re going to use a quarter gram.”

“Yeah,” Rudofsky said, “but if you got, let’s say, 700 grams, at some point you would say in theory you could use all 700 grams but it’s pretty indicative that you’re selling.”

“I wouldn’t be having this conversation if we were talking about 700 grams,” Fowler replied.

“But there’s some level of grams where it’s pretty clear you’re a seller and not just a user,” Rudofsky said.

“There’s 28 grams to an ounce,” Fowler said. “I guarantee you a methamphetamine user, if they’ve got enough money to buy that amount, they would use it themselves in a weekend.”

“I don’t know why we’re having this conversation,” Gardner cut in, talking over Rudofsky for a moment until the judge motioned for quiet.

“I know what Ms. Gardner is going to point out,” he said