More investigation required. . .

At the start of last night's F & A meeting JP Diana Keller asked HG Foster to address the committee regarding the Legislative Audit Report. Foster proceeded by explaining that recommendations made by a legislative audit cannot be ignored and the committee must act on them. However his office still has a conflict of interest as stated by the court and special prosecutor Tabor's job was completed. He added that the county's house counsel, Mike Rainwater, also would have a conflict due to pending litigation so that leaves no one for the county to use as counsel. Foster goes on to say after speaking with the County Judge they have come up with an alternative, Foster recommended the committee use local attorney Jim Lane.

Attorney Jim Lane then introduced himself to the committee and gave his opinion on how the investigation should proceed. Lane said the audit contains 8 very specific recommendations that must be acted on and the best way to proceed is to hire a retired legislative auditor or somebody how has worked with a state audit before to compile the data. This person would break down all the questionable purchases into who owes what so that he could better advise the committee on the how to seek reimbursement. The committee voted unanimously to use attorney Lane.

The money to hire Lane will come out of the County Judge's budget under an administrative account. This raised the question of could the county add these fees to the money owed by the abusers of the credit cards? Foster say theoretically it's possible but Lane added since their action will be in civil court it could only be done if a Judge orders it so, but how it would be split up between the parties would be an issue. So the bottom line would be it looks like we the taxpayers are going to foot this bill as well.

What about the other years where misspending occurred was addressed too by Lane who said the committee would have to decide at some point if they wanted to go down that road. He said that an audit of previous years to uncover misspending would cost anywhere from 13,000 to 40,000 or more and it might not be cost effective.

So the bottom line is not only are no criminal charges are being looked at in any of this we the tax payers are going to be out more money to pay for another attorney to take another 3-6 months before any recovery is sought. And if we want to know how much we are really owed by the 4 horsemen, Montgomery, Pike, Wallace, and Wise, we are going to have to spend more money.

Isn't our government grand? Where else can a person misspend thousands of dollars, get caught, and still keep their job. What a wonderful message this all sends, as long as you are well connected you can get away with anything. I say enough is enough, let's end this cycle of protecting the good ol' boy politician and those loyal underlings who abuse their positions. I have updated the election page at my site to include contact information for our local government personnel. If you are so motivated call them and complain, tell them that enough is enough, we demand accountability in government. If they won’t listen then show them at the polls how serious we are about this effort.

Letter to Judge Clawson

On Tuesday this week the Finance committee will meet to discuss, among other things, the recommendations made in the Legislative Audit report that showed thousands in misspend tax dollars. Special Prosecutor Stephen Tabor of Sebastian County said in a letter to District Judge Charles Clawson that he doesn't feel charges should be brought even though there is "ample evidence to arouse suspicion" in this case. I recently got a copy of this letter and posted at our website. http://www.fcso.info/tabor.doc

What I find interesting in this letter is the second paragraph where Tabor details how he did his review in this case. Tabor reviewed the file, met with the investigators, met with an unnamed attorney who represented Sheriff Montgomery, then read the report again to make sure.

During the course of my review, I not only reviewed the file, but also met with Mr. McQuary, Special Investigator Mike Richard and representatives from the Auditor's Office. I also met with an attorney representing Sheriff Montgomery to receive any explanations he might have to offer. I then reviewed the file yet again to insure I was confident in my decision.

Now in reading the rest of the letter it would appear that this unnamed attorney had a hand in the writing of it. Statements like "there is clear evidence of theft or fraudulent use of credit cards" and "Sheriff incurred or authorized expenditures which should not have been approved or paid by the County" but none of these are considered to be crimes committed by Sheriff Montgomery. And that was just on the first page.

In the remainder of this letter Tabor goes on to explain away all of the other misdeeds much in the same way a defense attorney would before a jury. Instead of aggressively prosecuting this crime against the people of this county Tabor offers, Montgomery says the expenses were "job related". Even on the tuition issue Tabor backs away because Montgomery said it allowed him to better perform his duties. Never mind the fact that it has already been established as a personal expense and was repaid after it was discovered.

Clearly Special Prosecutor Tabor was not an aggressive advocate for the people but rather just another politician protecting our good ol' boy Sheriff Marty Montgomery. I think we should all email Mr. Tabor with our disgust at his disregard for the people of Faulkner County. You can reach him at stevetabor@co.sebastian.ar.us

Happy Holidays

In the next coming weeks look for us to publish Prosecutor Tabor's letter to Judge Clawson detailing improprieties within the Faulkner County Sheriff's Office along with a lot of reasons why charges shouldn't be filed, and we always thought that prosecutors were suppose to find reasons to prosecute not the other way around.

On the back burner is the Scott Crow case, we have found some interesting differences in what is told to the court and what was told to the press years ago when the county voted on a justice sales tax to fund the new jail.

Also upcoming next month is the opening on the new jail and time for the Quorum Court to set the new budgets for all county departments. It will quite interesting to see how these allegations of illegal spending are going to affect this process. We hope the Finance Committee will take the appropriate action and use it to better control how our money is spent. One just has to look a few miles south and see how important controlling spending is these days. We cannot afford to be lax in this area less we suffer the same fate as Pulaski County residences. All in all it should be interesting to see what transpires this next month and the upcoming new year.

Happy Holidays from all of us here at FCSO.INFO, we sincerely wish everyone well.

The voters are watching

WAi radio personality Pat Lynch has been looking at Montgomery's misspending and says at his blog that a few years ago Attorney General Steve Clark was convicted of the allegation,

http://lynchlarge.blogspot.com/2005/11/faulkner-county-follies.html

Despite a seemingly ineffective special prosecutor investigation by Stephen Tabor of Fort Smith, state auditors have unearthed significant amounts of money owed the county. Unfortunately, the usually diligent Log Cabin Democrat fails to outline the improprieties with the same detail as the Democrat-Gazette report. These are numbers well over 30k. Many county employees, including the sheriff Marty Montgomery, are named in the earlier report.

A few years ago, Arkansas Attorney General Steve Clark was run out of office, criminally prosecuted, subjected to a fine, and deprived of his law license because of similar allegations.

I looked up Former AG Clark's offense and found in January 1990 Clark aborted a campaign for Governor after an Arkansas Gazette report that his office had spent $115,000 in travel and meals, sometimes with false documentation and was later charged with felony theft. In November that same year Clark was convicted of wrongfully charging less than $2,500 for personal use. He resigned as attorney general.

In Special Prosecutor Tabor's letter to Judge Clawson he says, among other things, There were a number of other charges in which the Sheriff charged clearly personal expenditure on the Department Credit card and then made reimbursements for those expenses.

But Montgomery faces no charges of wrong doing even though that very practice is against constitutional law. The worse part about this is that Montgomery readily admits that he has done these very things throughout his nine years in office. Who knows how much money was really misspent. The people of Faulkner County need a full ASP investigation, anything less is an insult to the people of this county.

I'd say that the District Judges, Prosecuting Attorneys, County Judge, and Quorum Court members of this county need to be advised, the voters are watching. . .

Lunacy and hypocrisy

Lunacy and hypocrisy is the only thing that can be said about why charges are not being sought against Sheriff Montgomery and his administrative staff. It kind of reminds me of the theme from the Dukes of Hazard expect for a few changes. Instead of "been in trouble with the law since the day they were born" it would be "been breaking the law since the day they took office". But from the latest report from KTHV it would seem that the media is trying to sell us the line "just good ole boys, never meaning no harm", I for one am not buying it.

In the follow up report by reporter Todd Wilson, who incidentally would not respond to my emails, Sheriff Marty Montgomery is quoted saying, "I have not violated any state law or policy. I've operated like this for nine years, and I don't understand why now it isn't okay." Montgomery readily admits to doing the very kinds of things that has caused this issue for the entirety of his time in office.

And if that wasn’t enough Kim Williams of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee blames much of problems on a lack of policy. And says that can't be blamed on Sheriff Marty Montgomery, but rather on the county quorum court for not setting a policy. That is simply ludicrous, the Quorum Court sets the budget and each department head is responsible for how that money is distributed. That logic would be equivalent to a person getting a loan for a new home and then buying a car instead, would the bank be responsible?

Now we all know that what Montgomery is accused of is morally and ethically wrong but what does the law really say about this. The elements of theft of property are set forth in A.C.A. § 5-36-103 and say that a person commits theft of property if he knowingly takes or exercises unauthorized control over, or makes an unauthorized transfer of an interest in, the property of another person. I cannot see how this does not fit this situation.

In the Supreme Court of Arkansas Opinion delivered May 13, 1999, Brian Alan HODGES v. Jody LAMORA, Myron Lamora, Gary Grimes, and Jim Rush (99-47 S.W.2d) the justices say the taxpayers are the equitable owners of all funds collected by a government and, in most of the cases, are liable to replenish the funds exhausted by a misapplication or wrongful payment. So when the Montgomery took family members and friends to those conferences and used our money to fund it, he stole our property. The Quorum Court and the people of Faulkner County did not give him the authority to use these funds for that purpose so therefore according to the law this is an unauthorized use and constitutes theft.

Another element of the crime that must be decided is did Montgomery know this was an unauthorized payment? In criminal cases ignorance of the law is not a defense that can be used by an offender and the courts have routinely ruled that if a person should have reasonably known that his act was against the law then it meets the requirements of a knowing act. So according to the law not only did Montgomery steal my and your money by taking friends and family on business trips we paid for but he knew it was wrong and should be charged with the crimes he has committed.

The hypocrisy of it all is the most disturbing thing about this. Right now there are probably people in jail or are going to jail for the same crime but Sheriff Marty Montgomery is above the law and does not have to share the same fate. The only question that remains is are we going to sit back and do nothing about it? Or are we going to make our anger known by removing these "good ole boys" from office.

We should all call our JPs and demand a state police investigation to look into not only how much money has been misspent over to past nine years but also look into charges of theft and fraud. Tell your JP we want our money back and an example made so that future acts of theft and fraud might be adverted.