Woods trial: Ecclesia grants also came from outside NWA

Ecclesia College is again refusing to release documents requested in a Freedom of Information Act request by a former teacher and board member
Ecclesia College is again refusing to release documents requested in a Freedom of Information Act request by a former teacher and board member

FAYETTEVILLE — Ecclesia College received a $50,000 state grant before it even applied for the money and another $50,000 grant after the deadline for accepting applications had passed, according to federal court testimony today.

The December 2013 state General Improvement Fund grant came from an economic development district based in Hot Springs, 198 miles by road from the private, Christian college in Springdale.

The same district’s board approved another $50,000 grant to Ecclesia at its next quarterly meeting in March 2014. The college’s application for that grant bears a false time stamp showing the application met the Feb. 28 deadline for consideration when it did not, the district director testified.

Dwayne Pratt was the government’s first witness today in the public corruption trial of former state Sen. Jon Woods. Pruitt is director of the West Central Arkansas Planning and Development District in Hot Springs. He took the grant requests to the board despite the deadline issues at the insistence then-state Sen. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, who was president pro tempore of the Senate at the time.

Woods was indicted in March 2017, accused of a kickback scheme involving such grants issued in 2013 and 2014. Two alleged co-conspirators —Randell Shelton, formerly of Alma, and Oren Paris III, former president of Ecclesia, were indicted with Woods.

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The kickback allegations also involve $550,000 of the more than $717,500 in state General Improvement Fund grants Ecclesia received from 2013 through 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice contends.

Woods directed the most grant money Ecclesia received at more than $350,000, court records show.

Another $100,000 from the fund to Ecclesia came through the West Central district during that same time period through two grants of $50,000 each.

The grant application from Ecclesia for the first $50,000 was received by the district on Dec. 12, 2013, although a letter informing the college it had received the grant is dated Nov. 25, 2013, according to documents provided the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last year under a Freedom of Information Act request. Ecclesia signed the grant agreement Dec. 17.

The only document from legislators provided by that district in support of the December grant is a letter dated Dec. 18, 2013 with Woods’ signature and on his Senate stationary, according to the district records.

The signed agreement for the second $50,000 grant was received March 24, 2014. That grant’s file also contained a letter from Woods, dated March 12 of the same year, in support of Ecclesia’s application, according to district documents.

A copy of the March 14, 2014, letter notifying Paris his grant was approved was sent to Lamoureux. Lamoureux declined comment last year when contacted by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Senate records provided by Lamoureux show no grants to Ecclesia College. Lamoureux was Senate president at the time the $50,000 grants to Ecclesia were awarded. As Senate president, his name was attached to any improvement fund money left over after each senator received a share. Any grants coming out of that remainder would have been attributed to Lamoureux, even if another senator made the request, former state senators confirmed.

Ecclesia reported it used the grants to help buy two proprieties of almost 50 acres in 2013.

The indictment doesn’t mention the $100,000 grant to Ecclesia through the West Central district nor are any other lawmakers besides Woods and former state Rep. Micah Neal, who also directed grants to the college in 2013 and 2014. Woods and Paris worked together to persuade other lawmakers to provide grants, according to the indictment.

The trial of Woods and Shelton began April 9 in federal court in Fayetteville and is expected to last about three more weeks.

Paris pleaded guilty April 4 to one count of conspiracy and will testify for the government. He resigned as Ecclesia’s president and from the college’s board the previous day. His sentence is also pending.

Paris disguised the kickbacks as consulting fees paid to Shelton’s company, Paradigm Strategic Consulting, according to the indictment. Shelton then passed the money along, the government contends.

Defense attorneys have said the money transfers to and from Woods were loans and money to pay back loans.

Woods directed a $200,000 grant to Ecclesia in September 2013, grant records show. Neal, of Springdale, supported a $50,000 grant to the college and Woods another $150,000 in December 2014, also according to grant records. The amount of money Woods is accused of receiving as a kickback isn’t specified in the indictment. It claims much of that money was paid in cash, except for one transaction made to Woods by wire transfer for $40,000.

In one transaction, Paris authorized $50,000 to Shelton’s firm Sept. 27, 2013 — the same day Paris signed an agreement for the college to accept a $200,000 state General Improvement Fund grant, the indictment says. Shelton used the $50,000 that day to open an account for his business, which had been incorporated the day before, the document reads.

Less than a week later, on or about Oct. 1, 2013, Shelton transferred $40,000 by wire from that business account into the personal bank account of Woods, according to prosecutors.

Woods faces 15 counts of fraud, all relating to either wire or mail transfers of money. Paris and Shelton were named in 14 of the fraud charges. All three were charged with one count of conspiracy to commit fraud. Woods is also charged with one count of money laundering in connection with the purchase of a cashier’s check.

Norton, state Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, and Mayor Tim McKinney of Berryville, who is a member of the Northwest development district’s board, all testified Tuesday board approval was a rubber stamp and lawmakers controlled the grants. Direct lawmaker control of such local grants by awarding them in legislation had been declared unconstitutional in an earlier state Supreme Court ruling.

The development district board had the legal authority to reject the grants, Woods’ defense attorney brought out in cross-examination of Norton and McKinney. And Shelton, Woods’ co-defendant, played no role in getting the grants approved, his defense counsel got the witnesses to confirm.

Woods and Neal also directed $400,000 in grant money to AmeriWorks, court and state records show. Neal pleaded guilty Jan. 4, 2017, for his role in the scheme and was the government’s first witness in the case. Neal said he received $20,000 delivered by Woods for steering $125,000 to AmeriWorks. Grant records show Woods directed $275,000 to the company.

Neal’s sentence is pending.

AmeriWorks was incorporated by lobbyist Russell “Rusty” Cranford and described in a grant application as a work-training program. Cranford, 56, is set for trial June 11 in federal court in Springfield, Mo., on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of accepting bribes in an unrelated indictment.

Records show AmeriWorks accepted the grant Sept. 26, incorporated Sept. 27 and deposited the $400,000 check Sept. 30.

Despite the grants, AmeriWorks failed to gain additional financial support and never got off the ground, according to an August 2014 letter from Cranford to the Northwest district returning the $400,000. Cranford returned the money the day after federal investigators spoke to him, prosecutors said in court documents filed earlier in the case.

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