Man facing gun counts to stay in jail

Federal agent indicates at bond hearing group planned retaliation for robbery

A Maumelle man facing firearms charges in Oklahoma was ordered Thursday to remain in custody after a federal agent testified that the man and others were believed to have been seeking retaliation for a robbery at the time they were arrested in Tulsa.

Kalob Nathaniel Burton, 23, was arrested Sept. 16 by police on violent-crime patrol in downtown Tulsa after a group of men were seen standing around a black 2008 Dodge Charger and a black 2016 Honda Accord, both with Arkansas tags, in a parking lot at North Elgin Avenue and West Reconciliation Way across from Ruby Red’s Nightclub and Ballroom.

A federal complaint filed Jan. 19 in the Northern District of Oklahoma said Burton was one of five men standing around the Charger, which approaching police saw contained multiple high-capacity firearms sitting on the center console. The complaint said three men were sitting in the Honda Accord, which was found to contain multiple firearms.

Burton was subsequently named — along with six of the men he was arrested with — in a superseding indictment returned by an Oklahoma grand jury Feb. 22, which charged him with one count each of conspiracy and attempt to traffic firearms and being a felon in possession of firearms. He was returned to Arkansas for the bond hearing at his request and has been incarcerated in the Pulaski County jail since Feb. 2, according to jail records.

According to Pulaski County Circuit Court records, Burton was convicted of felony possession of a controlled substance with purpose to deliver and theft by receiving Aug. 22, 2022, and was sentenced to 30 days in jail and five years’ probation.

According to the complaint, police in Tulsa seized 10 firearms from the two vehicles as well as a silencer, a body armor vest, drugs and drug paraphernalia.

The eight men — seven of whom were from Arkansas — were believed to have been in Oklahoma seeking retaliation for a robbery six days earlier, on Sept. 10, Special Agent Ben Nechiporenko with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives testified Thursday.

Nechiporenko, who is based in the Tulsa field office, testified by phone that one of the men arrested — Luis Trejo-Zambrano, 22, of Watts, Okla. — had reported to police on Sept. 10 that he had been robbed of $111,000 in jewelry in the Tulsa suburb of Catoosa.

Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lauren Eldridge, Nechiporenko testified that earlier, on Sept. 9, Trejo-Zambrano had been at Ruby Red’s with another man, Luis Soria, 21, of Siloam Springs, who was one of the eight men arrested Sept. 16. Nechiporenko said Trejo-Zambrano was believed to have contacted “some friends from Arkansas” to help him get his jewelry back, and the eight men were in the parking lot across from Ruby Red’s intending to retaliate against a patron he believed had set him up for the robbery with the assistance of three women.

Despite numerous objections of hearsay testimony from the ATF agent from John Barttelt of Hardy, who represented Burton for the hearing, Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Kearney allowed the testimony to continue under the more relaxed rules of evidence that govern bond hearings.

Arguing for Burton’s detention, Eldridge noted that when Burton was arrested, he was with seven other men who had 10 loaded firearms among them in two vehicles.

“That’s more firearms than occupants,” she said.

In addition, Eldridge said, one of the men with Burton was a younger brother, Darmel Dashun Batemon Jr., 20, of North Little Rock, who was free on bond on a manslaughter charge connected to a street racing crash in April that killed 84-year-old Gerald Stuart Allen.

Barttelt argued that with the exception of the Oklahoma arrest, Burton had displayed exemplary behavior while on probation. Barttelt argued that four of Burton’s family members had pledged to make sure he had transportation to court appearances in Oklahoma.

“The court in Oklahoma can do whatever the court in Oklahoma does,” he said.

While conceding that Burton gave no indication he would be a flight risk, Eldridge said the danger he posed to the community was displayed by the Oklahoma incident.

“It was planned,” she said. “It was calculated. It was scary. … He was willing to show out for someone he had no beef with because somebody he’s associated with said jump, and he jumped.”

At the conclusion of the hearing, Kearney rejected a release plan that would have allowed Burton to live with a sister after he found the circumstances of Burton’s arrest too troubling to risk allowing him to leave custody.

“I’m particularly bothered here by what is alleged,” said Kearney, a former public defense attorney. “The problem I’m having is what the allegations suggest he was going to Oklahoma for. It could have been a blessing that he was arrested.”