Former Arkansas prosecutor Dan Harmon dies
Dan Harmon, the former Arkansas prosecutor who was convicted of taking money and drugs from criminals in exchange for dropping charges against them, died at a Little Rock hospital Friday, his sister said Saturday.
Harmon, 78, died more than two decades after the 1997 federal conviction that came on the heels of his ouster from his position as prosecutor for Saline, Grant and Hot Spring counties, a post he held from 1979-80 and 1991-96.
His sister, Donna Wright, said he died at the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock. Harmon’s death was first reported on the MySaline website, which said Harmon had throat cancer.
Harmon was removed from office a year before the public corruption conviction came down when he took a plea deal in state court over allegations that he beat up Rodney Bowers, a former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter who was looking into a troubled regional drug task force.
Harmon was also convicted of federal drug crimes not long after the racketeering charges, and did time in prison until 2006. After his release, he worked for the Saline County circuit clerk, sorting and digitizing records. He took on other jobs too, such as working with mentally ill adults at a rehab center.
In 2010, he was acquitted of drug delivery charges that could have landed him in prison for the rest of his life. Jurors in that case did not find convincing claims from prosecutors that Harmon gave women prescription painkillers in exchange for cash and a glance at their breasts.
Before he was permanently disbarred, Harmon was also known for the role he played in investigating the deaths of Don Henry, 16, and Kevin Ives, 17, whose bodies were found on freight train tracks near Alexander on
Aug. 23, 1987.
Harmon led a grand jury investigation into the deaths, and his handling attracted harsh criticism from Kevin’s mother Linda Ives, who died without closure in June 2021 at age 71.
Mara Leveritt, in her 1999 book “The Boys on the Tracks: Death, Denial, and a Mother’s Crusade to Bring Her Son’s Killers to Justice,” asserts that Harmon’s 1997 conviction convinced Linda and the parents of Don Henry that the teens’ deaths happened in “an environment of local corruption.” The book does not draw conclusions about the case.
Bob Garrett, a retired circuit judge who said he’s known Harmon since college and worked as his deputy prosecutor for a time, heard about his death from friends. He heard Harmon was placed in hospice care at the veterans hospital in Little Rock on Thursday, he said.
Garrett didn’t want to get into the numerous controversies that haunted Harmon’s career, he said Saturday.
“He was a friend, and I’m sorry he passed away,” Garrett said.