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Former prison guard sentenced to prison for smuggling contraband

Former prison guard sentenced to prison for smuggling contraband

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FORREST CITY — A Wynne man was sentenced today for his role in smuggling tobacco and cellular telephones into the Federal Correctional Complex in Forrest City where he worked as a guard. United States District Court Judge Kristine G. Baker sentenced Josue Duane Garza, 42, to 12 months and one day in federal prison. Cody Hiland, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, announced today’s sentencing.

In June 2018, an inmate at the Federal Correctional Complex in Forrest City, Arkansas, informed prison officials that his family had been purchasing tobacco and cell phones and mailing them, along with cash, to Garza at a P.O. Box in Colt. The inmate reported that another inmate had started the scheme but had been transferred to another facility, leaving this inmate to take over the scheme.

Both inmates confirmed that their parents had purchased tobacco and cell phones, mailed them to Garza’s P.O. Box, and included cash. The parents received money orders and cash from other inmates’ families, who were paying for the inmates’ purchases.

The inmates said they split the proceeds with Garza. In an interview, Garza admitted that he had conducted the scheme from October 2017 through July 2018 and received over $40,000.

On August 23, 2019, Garza pleaded guilty to an Information charging him with Bribery of a Public Official.

“This defendant’s blatant contraband scheme was an abuse of his authority as a federal prison guard,” U.S.

Attorney Hiland said.

“Smuggling illicit cell phones into prison allows convicted felons to continue their criminal activity, even from inside the prison walls. Today’s sentence demonstrates that those who seek to profit from these underhanded dealings will soon find themselves among the inmates they formerly enabled.”

In addition to the prison term, Garza was sentenced to one year of supervised release following his imprisonment. The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General, and the case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Benecia Moore.

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The Sebastian County Sheriff’s Department has requested the assistance of the Arkansas State Police in the investigation of an in-custody death that occurred yesterday (Friday, July 31st) at the county detention center.

Jacob W. Honeycutt, 36, of Fort Smith was pronounced dead at Baptist Hospital in Fort Smith at 9:04 Friday night.

Detention center officers were alerted at approximately 8:30 p.m. by another inmate in the jail that Honeycutt appeared to be experiencing a seizure.

Nurses at the detention center and sheriff’s department personnel administered life saving measures to Honeycutt and contacted emergency medical personnel to transport Honeycutt to the local hospital.

Special Agents of the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Division are leading an

Continued on Page 11 STATE NEWS (cont.)

investigation of the death.

Honeycutt’s body is being transported to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory where a manner and cause of death will be determined.

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FAYETTEVILLE — Growing rice may provide some insulation from the economic impacts of COVID-19 for Arkansas farms, but cotton growers are likely to be harder hit through 2023, according to a model run by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

The study did have an upside: the negative effects from COVID-19 on 2019 commodity prices will likely be offset by payments from the Coronavirus Food Assistance program, or CFAP. Since program enrollment began in late May, Arkansas ag producers have received more than $93 million in direct payments through CFAP.

Of the total, major row crops — non-specialty crops — account for just over $22 million in payments. Enrolment for the CFAP program ends Aug.

28.

The study is by Alvaro Durand-Morat, Scott Stiles, Brad Watkins and Bob Stark, all agricultural economists with the Division of Agriculture. Their work is drawn from a five-farm model based on financial

Continued on Page 14 STATE NEWS (cont.)

data files made available by the Texas A& M Agricultural and Food Policy Center developed with the assistance of the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

The five representative farms are based on local conditions at Wynne, Stuttgart, Hoxie, McGehee, and Mississippi County.

The farms have various combinations of long- and medium-grain rice, soybeans, corn cotton and peanuts. The models include the safety net programs under the 2018 Farm Bill, in particular, the Price Loss Coverage and Agricultural Risk Coverage-County programs. The authors also assume that all rice, corn, cotton, and peanut acres are enrolled in PLC, while all soybean acres are enrolled in ARC-CO for the duration of the 2018 Farm Bill.

The economists looked at the 2019 to 2023 marketing years.

“COVID-19 has affected commodity prices globally by disrupting the supply and demand of agricultural commodities in unprecedented ways,” Durand-Moat said.

“All five farms will receive lower revenues and have lower net cash farm incomes due to COVID-19 in every marketing year considered in the projection,” Durand-Morat said.

“Corn, at minus 14.3 percent, and cotton, at minus 13.7 percent, would experience the largest decreases in prices in the short term,” he said. The plus side is that “as a result of COVID19, the price of long-grain rice in the U.S. is projected to increase by 4.8 percent and 3.3 percent in 2020 and 2021, and decrease below the baseline thereafter, while the price of mediumgrain rice in the U.S.

increases slightly in 2020 and 2021, and decreases slightly thereafter.”

“The loss of net cash farm income of Arkansas representative farms, 2019–2023 during COVID-19, are lower in the Wynne, Hoxie, Stuttgart farms since they have a large share of rice acres,” Durand-Morat said.

“The Coronavirus Food Assistance Program payments issued for the 2019 corn, soybean, and cotton crops effectively compensate for the 2019 revenue loss due to COVID-19 for the five farms in the model,” he said.

The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute projects that all commodities will realize lower prices due to COVID-19 compared to the baseline for the coming years.

Find the study here: https://agcomm.uark.edu/ag news/publications/1002_Im pact_COVID19_Ark_Field_Crop_Farms _2020.pdf Other COVID-19 economic impacts can be found here: https://bit.ly/AR-Ag-Eco- Impacts2020.

To learn more about extension and research programs in Arkansas, visit https://division.uaex.e du, Follow us on Twitter at @AgInArk, @uaex_edu or @ArkAgResearch.

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