Pubdate: Thu, 31 Oct 2013
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2013 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only
Author: Linda Satter

POLICE 'POT' ESCORT GETS 8 1/2 YEARS

Judge Notes Ex-Lr Officer's Dishonesty, Lack of Remorse

A former Little Rock police officer who a judge said failed to show 
remorse and lied on the witness stand last week was sentenced 
Wednesday to 81/2 years in prison for helping transport marijuana 
through the city on March 22, 2012, while on duty.

Mark Anthony Jones, 46, who was fired after his arrest in what was 
actually an FBI sting operation, faced five to 10 years in prison in 
connection with his guilty plea earlier this year to a charge of 
attempting to aid and abet the possession of 1,000 pounds of 
marijuana with the intent to distribute it.

Jones' sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge James Moody 
began Friday but abruptly came to a halt after federal prosecutors 
complained that in an effort to mitigate his punishment, he was lying 
on the witness stand about how he got involved in the crime.

When the hearing resumed Wednesday, prosecutors were armed with 
transcripts of Jones' conversations last year with a confidential 
informant, which had been secretly recorded by the FBI and had 
already been aired in previous hearings. They also presented 
testimony from the informant, who told the judge that Jones offered 
on his own to assist in a drug delivery to earn extra cash.

Jones testified last week that he only agreed to the informant's 
request for a police escort for an illegal drug shipment in return 
for $5,000 because it was a way to recoup most of the $6,000 that the 
informant, a former drug dealer and local comedy promoter, owed him 
for his participation in a comedy show.

The informant, Brandon Hill, testified Wednesday that he never owed 
Jones $6,000 "to do a comedy show anywhere."

Hill, reiterating some of the testimony he gave during a trial in 
July for former officer Randall Tremayn Robinson, who is Jones' half 
brother, denied that Jones was ever a co-promoter with him for a 
comedy event. However, he said he did pay Jones $500 to perform one 
segment of a comedy show that ultimately was a flop when the main 
performer failed to show up.

Jones, a 26-year veteran of the Police Department, testified Friday 
that he had always been a law-abiding citizen and dedicated police 
officer until the FBI, through Hill, entrapped him into committing a 
crime with the lure of being able to recoup money that he was 
legitimately owed.

It was a much different picture from that previously described by an 
FBI agent at Jones' pretrial hearings and during the trial for 
Robinson, which ended when jurors deadlocked on three charges related 
to the March delivery and a mistrial was declared. He was convicted 
of selling half a pound of marijuana to a police informant in 2009. 
Robinson is scheduled to be retried on the 2012 delivery charges in 
the spring before another jury.

Hill, who owned a small shipping company in Little Rock, testified 
Friday that in December of 2011, after the FBI intercepted a package 
of marijuana that he shipped to himself, he agreed to cooperate with 
the FBI in return for the leniency in his case. For years, the FBI 
had been investigating reports of illegal activities by Jones and 
Robinson, and during that investigation, discovered that Jones knew 
Hill because of their shared interest in comedy and that Jones 
regularly dropped by Hill's business, Mail Boxes Etc.

A transcript played in court Wednesday of a Dec. 15, 2011, 
conversation between Jones and Hill revealed Jones admiring Hill's 
financial success and the life that went with it - ski trips with his 
girlfriend and an expensive-looking jacket. Jones was recorded 
bragging about the skills he had learned as a police officer that 
would make him good at committing crimes.

He said he liked television shows about greed.

"I want to be rich, you know what I'm saying?" he said at one point. 
"I want that lifestyle."

"If I take a chance, man, it's gonna be something that's worth it," 
he said at another point. "It's gonna be something I can depend on." 
He also told Hill, "I'm trying to get off these streets."

In a second conversation recorded on Feb. 23, 2012, Jones talked 
about having inside information about how to run a car-theft 
operation without getting caught.

Hill said Jones told him he was $80,000 in debt to the IRS.

Defense attorney Charles "Dan" Hancock dismissed the recorded 
conversations as "two men shooting the breeze," and urged Moody to 
look instead at Jones' good deeds over the years, which included 
saving a life while on duty, in considering how to sentence him.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Harris argued that "the tape is the 
real deal" when it comes to Jones' true personality.

"This is a law enforcement officer who has deceived everybody and on 
the side is just a criminal and a slickster," Harris said.

In imposing a sentence of 104 months, within a range of 97 to 121 
months suggested by federal sentencing guidelines, Moody said Jones 
did not appear remorseful. He added, "I do think Mr. Jones lost some 
credibility when he testified at the hearing last Friday," noting 
that his statements were "totally inconsistent with what he said in the tapes."

Moody, who had earlier noted that Jones' crime was especially 
egregious because he ignored an emergency dispatch to focus on 
escorting the marijuana shipment, said he didn't think Jones was 
entitled to a sentence below the guideline range.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom