Prosecutor named to take up Faulkner County Clerk’s case

CONWAY — Saline County Prosecutor Attorney Ken Casady will be the one to decide whether one or more employees in Faulkner County Clerk Margaret Darter’s office will be charged over handling of financial records.

Bob McMahon, Arkansas’ state prosecutor coordinator, recommended Casady for the position in a letter sent earlier this month to Judge Troy Braswell of Faulkner County Circuit Court.

Casady said he has received the case file of the investigation by the Arkansas State Police.

“We are in the process of reviewing the file,” Casady said Tuesday.

Casady said he couldn’t estimate how long the review would take because he just recently obtained the file.

In June, Cody Hiland, the Faulkner County prosecutor, asked the state police to determine whether anyone in the clerk’s office had tampered with public officials’ past- due statements of financial interest to make it appear the forms were filed on time.

The state police turned over its findings to Hiland in early September, and he requested a special prosecutor.

Hiland said he wanted to “avoid any appearance of impropriety and conflict” since he publicly supported Darter during her election last year.

Darter has declined to comment on the investigation.

Hiland told the state police in June information he received indicates statements of financial interest “from multiple elected county officials were filed subsequent to the legal deadline … but were improperly file stamped to reflect a timely filing and compliance with the law.”