FBI Public Corruption Unit seeks our cooperation in investigation of the Little Rock Mayor and Police Chief

by Russ Racop

On Tuesday, August 10, 2021 I received a call from a special agent with the Little Rock field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Public Corruption Unit.

The individual that called refused to provide his name, and I assumed it was a scam call like one about your Social Security number being disabled or the last call about your car warranty expiring.

The man said "we think you have some information that can help us on one of our cases."

 

I told him to call an attorney friend of mine and try to schedule the meeting.

I gave them the number of fellow blogger and attorney Matt Campbell.

Matt publishes Blue Hog Report and we often collaborate to expose shady public officials and government corruption.

I called Matt and gave him a heads up. Some time later Matt sent me a text.

I wanted Matt along to be a witness as I felt certain I would not be permitted to record the meeting.

Many of you know before I became an investigative journalist and blogger, I had considerable experience as an investigator (state agency and financial institutions). In those positions I frequently worked with law enforcement agencies including the FBI.

Here are some business cards of the agents I worked with when working in those positions.

 

Let's take a minute to give some additional background information, back in 2016,  after an in-depth investigation and a lawsuit to force release of public records, we found that Cody Hiland, then a prosecuting attorney, had illegally used federal funds to pay for payroll taxes, etc.

You can read all about that by clicking here.

Hiland also had some problem with an employee that used her position to obtain sealed court records in another state about her ex-husband's new wife.You can read about that by clicking here.

Hiland also employed an investigator with a questionable background and law enforcement credentials obtained under false pretenses. You can read about that by clicking here and here.

The FBI investigated that matter with Hiland and the drug task force he ran out of his office in Conway. 

I worked with a special agent in the Public Corruption Unit and shared records I had obtained via FOI request. Her name was Tonja Sablatura.

The Hiland investigation came to a screeching halt when he was appointed the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

I  sent a text message to her about the call from Special Agent Copley to confirm his identity. 

So on Wednesday, August 11, 2021 I went to the FBI Field office in WLR.
 

Matt was going to tag along, but he had to meet with a client so I went by myself.

As I was going through their security checkpoint, I was told I could not take an electronic devices inside., So I had to take my cellphone and digital recorder back to my vehicle.

I met with Copely and his partner in what used to be the receptionist office inside the front door on the right (counter and glass window that looked out on the fourier of the building). A big empty room with three or four old desk chairs and a big ass free standing copier/printer.

After some small talk they got into the reason for the meeting.

They reiterated what they had said to me and Matt about wanting to sit down with me as they believed I might have some information that would assist them in an investigation.

The targets of the investigation?  The feckless Little Rock mayor and the troubled, corrupt police chief.

Our discussion lasted almost three hours.

You dear readers,  can drawn your own conclusions. 

Ours here at Snarky Media Group is that some shit is about to go down.

 

Pulaski County Sheriff's Office Detention Deputy arrested and charged with stealing inmate information for identitiy fraud purposes

 

Earlier today we broke this story about Pulaski County Sheriff's Office Detention Deputy Ollie Mills being fired and arrested for stealing information of nine inmates, including social security numbers , for the purpose of using that information in financial identity fraud.

A press release was sent out at approximately 4:30pm today that detailed the incident.

 

Mills, 27, of Conway is being held in the Pulaski County jail without bond.

Mills in her PCSO uniform at a happier time

 

Sheriff's spokesman Lt. Cody Burk said the department received a tip about Mills collecting nine inmate's names and social security numbers prior to the arrest.

Mills had been employed at the detention facility less than a year, according to Burk, and she has been terminated from her employment at the sheriff's office.

According to Mills' Facebook page, her prior job was a nurses aid at a Little Rock rehab center.

Investigators have not been able to find fraudulent actions taken against the inmates, and the investigation is ongoing, the release said.

A search of court records reveals that Mills had a history of financial problems resulting in a lien being filed against her by the Department of Finance & Administration for non-payment of state income taxes.

And failure to pay rent when due which resulted in a judgment being obtained against her in the amount of $3,191.29.

 

Stay tuned for updates.

Hypocritical Pulaski County Judge bends over for LR mayor and police chief that defied his court order last year

Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Herbert T. Wright

 

In 2020 we filed four Arkansas Freedom of Information appeal from denial of rights lawsuits against the feckless Little Rock mayor and deadbeat police chief.

Two of the cases were assigned to Judge Wright and two were assigned to Judge Wendell Griffen.

Wright unsuccessfully tried to wrangle the two cases from Judge Griffen to no avail.

Initially,  Wright failed to follow the law and set the cases for a hearing within seven days of the petitions being filed.

We had difficulty getting Wright to set a date for the hearing and that necessitated that we file a motion for his recusal. 

That filing resulted in his setting a date for a hearing.

In that hearing the city attorney, Tom Carpenter, motioned that all four cases we filed be consolidated. This would require Judge Griffen to agree to step away from the two cases in his court (he didn't - more on those cases in another post).
 

Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter

So on March 3, 2020 the LR mayor and police chief appeared before Wright to answer for their refusal to turn over public records. 

 

 The first case involved copies of the non-exempt portions of each uniformed, plain clothed non-undercover LRPD officer's personnel record. 

According to records LRPD had previously provided to us, they had approximately 529 non-undercover cops. In response to our request for copies of personnel files, they only provided 79 files and closed the request. Hence our appeal.

Wright ordered the city to provide those records to us by the close of business on the next day, March 4, 2020.

The other case was not addressed at the hearing.

On March 4th, the city provided us with a thumb drive containing 432 personnel files all jumbled up in 18 PDF's.

 

Five of the files were duplicates of files in the initial 79 files provided out of 529 files. We raised our concerns with the city attorney about the missing 23 files.

On March 5, 2020, the city filed a notice of compliance with the court in which they admitted to have not provided all the records as ordered.

So on March 9, 2020 we filed a motion for contempt as the city had not provided all the records as ordered.

Then COVID-19 happened and the courts for all practical purposes shut down.

When the courts opened back up in 2021 we asked for a hearing on our motion for contempt and for a hearing on the second case.

Initially Wright wanted to have the hearing via Zoom. That was fine, but he wanted us to be present in the courtroom while the defendants and city attorney could call in from their office or home. That showed a bias and preferential  treatment for the defendants.

We objected.

After some additional court filings, Wright agreed to have all parties in his courtroom.

We must point out Wright's hypocrisy as he is a participating in a research project with Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR).

Here are some clips from the article about the project. The  article is titled "Fairness and Efficiency Are at the Forefront of Reforms in Pulaski County".

 

 

 

The treatment we received from Wright was anything but equitable or fair.

At the hearing today he found no problems with the defendants not being present and would not hold the mayor or police chief in contempt and dismissed the second case.

That second case involved LRPD permitting an individual to have access to records (videos) that they refused to provide to us.

The message Wright sent out today is that his court orders are not worth the paper they are written on.

But the jokes on him. 

We obtained all the records we asked for. We were given them last year.

In fact we almost skipped the hearing today. Wonder if he would have held us in contempt?

 

North Little Rock cop Samuel Montgomery does not see any problem with a racist cop - neither does NLRPD administration

 Russ Racop - June 24, 2021

NLR cop Sam Montgomery has the back of racist cops

 

Apparently NLRP cop Samuel Montgomery and the NLRPD has no problem working with or employing racist individuals.

A complaint was recently made about an interaction a citizen had with Montgomery. During a conversation, Montgomery said that "there's nothing wrong with a racist being a cop".

Based on the compliant an investigation was opened.

Wow. We wish we could say we were surprised, but the klan is strong at most every law enfrocement agency.

In fact, the FBI for the last decade has warned about that.

Source: https://theintercept.com/2020/09/29/police-white-supremacist-infiltration-fbi/

 

Here is information about Montgomery.

 

Court file reveals text message contact betweem Maumelle High School teacher Stephanie Almand and her student victim

 Russ Racop - June 22, 2021

 

Records obtained from the Little Rock District Criminal Court provide a glimpse into the relationship between Maumelle High School Teacher Stephanie Almand and her 17 year old student victim Hayden Brister.

Court records revealed that the two began an intimate relationship in February 2021 which turned sexual in April 2021.

Based on the LRPD report we believe that C1 and C2 are Brayden Yancey and Jerry Rudd.

The records also detail search warrants for Almand's cellphone (which she disconnected or changed the number) and residence. 

From the records it appears that Almand was getting rid of her dogs and some furniture. Perhaps the couch and pillows might have contained DNA of the victim.

 

Almand's Love Shack on Perry Street.

Here are some other interesting bits of information that came out in the court files.

Hayden Brister told detectives in an interview that Almand said she didn't like having relationships and sex with people her own age.

LRPD arrests and charges Stephanie Almand, a Pulaski County Special School District teacher, with felony sexual assault

Russ Racop - June 21, 2021

 

 

The Little Rock Police Department finally arrested and charged PCSSD teacher Stephanie Renee Almand with felony sexual assault stemming from a sexual relationship she had with a student at Maumelle High School.

We broke the story about her in a post we made on May 8th (click here to view). 

Almand was arrested and booked on June 11th and released after posting a $50,000 bond.

Almand was in court at the Little Rock District Court today and appeared before District Court Judge Melanie Martin.

 

Judge Martin is not in favor of transparency and will likely seal the records for 120 days.  Remember that when her term comes up for re-election.

Almand has a review hearing set for August 10th at 9:00 a.m.

Why the case has not been transferred to Circuit Court to go before a real judge is something we should all be concerned about.

Stay tuned for updates.

***UPDATE - 06/22/21*** 

LRPD sent us their incident report. They redacted the victims name, however we know it as followers provided it to us when we first reported about this on social media.

 

 

 

 

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