IN SHORT: The former Lonoke police chief is removed from Pine Bluff for his own safety under a cooperative agreement with other states, according to Arkansas Correction Department spokesperson Dina Tyler.
By JOHN HOFHEIMER
Leader senior staff writer
The Arkansas Correction De-partment Thursday moved former Lonoke Police Chief Jay Campbell from its Diagnostic Unit at Pine Bluff to an undisclosed prison in Missouri, according to Dina Tyler, the department spokesperson.
The move was one of three options the department had to help ensure his security, Tyler said. The DOC could have placed Campbell in protective custody, placed him in administrative segregation or transferred him to another state under the cooperative agreement known as the interstate compact.
Special Circuit Judge John Cole sentenced Campbell to 40 years in prison for masterminding a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to manufacture methamphetamine and for a raft of residential burglary, theft and obtaining controlled substance convictions in Lonoke Circuit Court.
As a career law enforcement official, Campbell is believed to have enemies in Arkansas prisons.
Campbell and his wife Kelly Campbell were tried together. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison for 26 convictions including residential burglary, theft and obtaining a controlled substance by theft.
She is currently housed at the McPhearson Unit in Newport.
At the end of their first week in Arkansas prisons, the Campbells returned to a Cabot courtroom for what they believed was a pretty perfunctory hearing and release on appeals bonds. But Cole vacated his previous order, which would have set bond at $200,000 for him, $100,000 for her.
Unless they successfully appeal Cole’s decision that they are not eligible for bond, the two will remain in prison for the approximately 18 months it will take for the state Supreme Court to receive and hear their appeals.
In related matters, Lonoke County Prosecutor Lona Mc-Castlain says former Lonoke Mayor Thomas Privett and former Lonoke Police Department dispatcher Amy Staley will probably be tried in July, but no date has been set.
Privett is charged with theft of services, a misdemeanor, for having state Act 309 trustees hang his Christmas decorations and fix an air conditioner at his home.
Staley is charged with having sex with an Act 309 inmate.
Also this week, Special Pro-secutor Larry Jegley said he had just begun reviewing the case file on former Campbell codefendants Bobby Junior Cox and Larry Norwood, both bail bondsmen.
Both are charged with conspiring with Jay Campbell to manufacture methamphetamine. A State Police investigation is underway to determine whether there are sufficient grounds for charging them with soliciting capital murder. A witness has said Cox asked him to kill McCastlain and a star prosecution witness.
That’s why Jegley, the Pulaski County prosecutor, will try the two men.
Jegley said no trial or hearing dates have been set.
