Posted on 04/05/2005 12:56:58 AM PDT by HAL9000
FBI Probes Allegations On Fields
© copyright: Times Record, 2005
Former Sebastian County Prosecuting Attorney Ron Fields has been on administrative leave from the Department of Homeland Security since last summer because of an FBI investigation and grand jury proceedings, his attorney confirmed Friday.
Eddie Christian of Fort Smith said the investigation is the “biggest witch hunt he’s ever seen.”
Christian said the FBI has accused Fields of dealing drugs and of ordering Jay C. Rider, then a Fort Smith police captain, to shoot a Fort Smith woman, Lori Murchison, in 1995.
Christian also represents Rider.
“It’s based on information they’ve gotten from totally unreliable sources,” Christian said. “I think the sources for the government investigation are crackpots. I think they’re people with imaginations that run wild.”
When reached Friday evening, the FBI office in Washington would not comment.
Murchison disappeared from Fort Smith on Sept. 2, 1995. Police believe she did not leave the area willingly. Murchison was last seen that day when she was released from jail on a public intoxication complaint. She planned to get her paycheck, cash it and then return to bail her boyfriend out of jail.
She never picked up her paycheck from Oaks Lodge Nursing Home and never returned to bail Jerry Cogan out of jail. A manager at the Continental Motel told police Murchison came into the office to get a key to her room between 2 and 4 p.m. on Sept. 2, according to the case file at the Fort Smith Police Department.
The case remains unsolved.
Christian said the FBI investigation was the result of “two or three” local people who went to the FBI and reported “rumors and innuendoes.”
Rider, who is now an agent with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control, has testified before the Washington grand jury regarding the Fields case, Christian said.
Speaking of the FBI, Christian said, “They’re absolutely nuts. I have never witnessed a federal investigation that has been conducted like this one has. They have gone in and tried to intimidate people. They’ve told them if they do not cooperate and give them information about Fields, they’re going to be indicted. They told Rider that.”
Christian also said 11 FBI agents showed up at Rider’s house with their guns drawn. He said agents have harassed the families of Fields and Rider.
Christian said he is baffled on why a grand jury convened in Washington would be investigating alleged corruption in Arkansas.
“I’ve known this guy (Fields) for a long damn time,” Christian said. “Let me tell you, he’s one of the most impoverished lawyers I know. He wears J.C. Penney suits. He does not live high on the hog. This boy’s never made any money. I mean, he’s a been a public servant and that’s been about it except for a short stint in private practice. It’s crazy to accuse Ron Fields of selling drugs or doing drugs.”
Fields served as the 12th Judicial District Prosecuting Attorney from 1979-96.
Defeated in his bid for re-election by Republican Tom Gean, Fields went into a private law practice, where he remained until Asa Hutchinson hired him to work at the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington. He later followed Hutchinson to the Department of Homeland Security.
Christian said Fields and Hutchinson came to an agreement last summer that in order to avoid any embarrassment to the agency, Fields would go on leave.
Hutchinson declined to comment on the investigation Friday. “Any comments regarding Ron Fields should be left to the parties involved,” Hutchinson said in a statement Friday.
Hutchinson left the Department of Homeland Security in January and has announced that he will run for Arkansas governor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1997 and left Congress in August 2001 to head the DEA. He left the DEA in January 2003 to become under secretary of border and transportation security at the Homeland Security department.
“The investigation has gone on long enough that if they don’t have something by now, they’re not going to get anything. And they’re never going to get anything because there ain’t anything there,” Christian said.
Ping
I was just thinking last night, how quiet it had gotten.
Glad to see the cleaning crew out and about.
This reads more like press release by Christian. I would be interested in hearing the other side of the story.
what is it about the AG office in AK? The only one in the last 20 years not be the accussed of crimes - in court, was Klinton. 2 AK AG went to jail.
... Christian said he is baffled on why a grand jury convened in Washington would be investigating alleged corruption in Arkansas...
The reason you're looking for is called Arkancide.
Ron Fields - politics or vengeance?
Friday, Apr 8, 2005
By Jack MoseleyI would sooner believe Mother Teresa was an ax murderer than think Ron Fields could be guilty of using and trafficking in illegal drugs. No, not this longtime Arkansas prosecutor (18 consecutive years, re-elected eight times), former acting state attorney general and longtime associate and friend of Republican gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson with whom he worked in both the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Department of Homeland Security in Washington.
I've never known a more straight-arrow fellow than Fields. And the idea of him ordering a police officer to kill a missing woman in Fort Smith to keep her quiet about his alleged drug activities is even more ridiculous.
Still, Fields has been on administrative leave since last fall from his post in the Department of Homeland Security while the FBI investigates an anonymous letter to the DEA. His security clearance has been suspended as a result of the ongoing probe by the FBI.
"I understand that things like this have to be investigated, and I've tried my best to cooperate," Fields told me, indicating that the probe of his activities in Arkansas has dragged on long enough. His cooperation even has gone so far as permitting the inspection of his body for needle marks and scars that were never there.
Additionally, he authorized investigators to have access to the results of blood tests made during three separate hospital stays in Fort Smith. All those hospitalizations were unscheduled and provided no time for someone to clear drugs from his system.
All this smells like a vengeful witch hunt to me. Was it triggered by some political enemy who hates Fields? Or could it have originated with someone he sent to prison? Regardless, I suspect the man's life has been turned into a living hell. It's time for the feds, who have hauled witnesses before a grand jury in Washington instead of Arkansas, to put up or shut up and clear Fields' name and reputation.
Anyone who has followed Fields' career knows he hates illegal drugs, particularly cocaine, meth and crank that his nameless, faceless accuser claimed he used. Indeed, he helped write laws that required longer prison sentences in this state for abusers of those very drugs. As head of the 12th Judicial Drug Task Force in western Arkansas, Fields established one of the most successful records in the war on drugs. He pioneered improved enforcement techniques that assured more convictions of drug offenders.
It was Fields who first required prosecutors or their deputies - rather than police - to secure search warrants in drug cases. Fields or one of his deputies personally went on almost every local drug raid in order to guarantee that evidence was properly gathered, protected and kept for use in criminal trials. Other prosecutors soon adopted Fields' techniques and the conviction rate in Arkansas went up significantly.
Because of his long, unblemished record, then-Gov. Bill Clinton appointed Fields acting attorney general for the state in the wake of a scandal that forced the resignation of Attorney General Steve Clark in 1990.
This simply doesn't sound like the record of a man who is mixed up with illegal drugs and orders the execution of someone who allegedly had information that could be used against him.
No one knows what happened to Lori Murchison in 1995 after she was released from the Sebastian County jail. She disappeared without picking up a paycheck from her employer and without posting bail for a friend who was still in jail. At that time, Fields was recovering from eye surgery and was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the prosecutor's office.
Eddie Christian Sr., Fields' Fort Smith attorney, has said FBI agents have been misled by "totally unreliable sources." "They're absolutely nuts," declared the defense lawyer.
Unless they can produce some creditable evidence, the FBI should clear Fields of all accusations against him, restore his security clearance and let him return to doing something he has done faithfully and honorably throughout his adult life - serving his country in the heat of combat, serving his state and nation in the best interest of the people of Arkansas and America.
Life, luck and -30-.
YOU COULD NEVER MEET IN YOUR LIFETIME A MAN MORE DEDICATED TO TRUTH,JUSTICE AND ALWAYS OUT TO GET THE BAD GUYS OFF THE STREETS. WHAT PEOPLE,NAMELY 3 (COULD TELL YOU THEIR NAMES), NOW ONE WHO HAS RECENTLY DIED,HAD A PERSONAL VENDETTA AMD HATRED FOR RON FIELDS AND AS ALL PEOPLE KNOW,WHEN YOU HATE YOU CAN GO TO GREAT LINKS TO TRY AND RUIN A REPUTATION. WE WHO KNOW HIM,KNOW BETTER. RON IS DOING WELL NOW AND THEY LOST AND WILL CONTINUE TO LOSE IN THEIR SORRY LIVES
Of course, he made an excellent decision when he hired Eddie Christian to be his attorney.
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