Federal officials stated that a former Arkansas state senator was sentenced Tuesday to four years and two months in prison for accepting bribes.
The plea agreement indicated that Jeremy Hutchinson, 48, of Little Rock, admitted to filing a false tax return and conspiracy to commit federal program bribery in federal court in Arkansas. In Missouri, he also plead guilty to conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, according to officials.
On Feb. 3, Hutchison was sentenced to three years and ten months in prison for his convictions in Arkansas. His sentence in Missouri will run consecutively with Arkansas sentences for a total of eight years on all the criminal cases.
According to court documents concerning his plea in the Western District of Missouri, Hutchinson was hired by then-chief operating officer Bontiea Goss as outside counsel for Preferred Family Healthcare Inc. (formerly known as Alternative Opportunities Inc.), a Springfield, Missouri-based healthcare charity.
In exchange for payments and legal work, Hutchinson performed official acts on behalf of Preferred Family Healthcare, including holding up agency budgets and drafting and voting on legislation.
Preferred Family Healthcare paid Hutchinson over $350,000 in monthly retainer payments from May 2014 until 2017.
According to court records, an estimated $20 million of taxpayer money went to bribes and kickbacks to those involved in the scheme, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
At its peak, Preferred Family collected $43.9 million in 2016 from the state’s Medicaid-funded mental health program — one in every seven dollars the program spent that year, the
Democrat-Gazette reported that court records indicated that the Gosses used Preferred Family money to provide interest-free loans to their for-profit businesses and pay marked-up vehicle leasing fees to one of their companies.
Over four years, the nonprofit paid $2 million to lease the vehicles from the Gosses’ company, which had leased those vehicles from another company for $1.1 million.
According to court records, Preferred Family also paid for charter flights from Springfield to the Gosses’ second home in Colorado.
In 2022, Preferred Family Healthcare agreed to pay more than $8 million in forfeiture and restitution to the federal government and Arkansas under the terms of a non-prosecution agreement, officials stated.
The company admitted to the criminal conduct of its former officers and employees.
Several former executives from the charity, former members of the Arkansas state legislature, and others have pleaded guilty in federal court as part of the long-running, multi-jurisdiction investigation, including the following:
- Former Chief Operating Officer Bontiea Goss, previously of Springfield, Missouri, pleaded guilty in September 2022 to her role in a conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
- Former Chief Financial Officer Tommy “Tom” Ray Goss, husband of Bontiea Goss, and also previously of Springfield, Missouri, pleaded guilty in September 2022 to participating in the conspiracy by embezzling funds from the charity, as well as by paying bribes and kickbacks to elected public officials in Arkansas. Tom Goss also pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and assisting in preparing and presenting a false tax return.
- Former Chief Executive Officer Marilyn Luann Nolan of Springfield, Missouri, pleaded guilty in November 2018 to her role in a conspiracy to embezzle and misapply the funds of a charitable organization that received federal funds.
- Former Director of Operations and Executive Vice President Robin Raveendran of Little Rock, Arkansas, pleaded guilty in June 2019 to conspiracy to commit bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds.
- Former executive and head of clinical operations Keith Fraser Noble of Rogersville, Missouri, pleaded guilty in September 2019 to concealment of a known felony.
- Former employee and head of operations and lobbying in Arkansas Milton Russell Cranford, aka Rusty, of Rogers, Arkansas, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of federal program bribery.
- Political consultant Donald Andrew Jones, aka D.A. Jones, of Willingboro, New Jersey, pleaded guilty in December 2017 to his role in a conspiracy to steal from an organization that receives federal funds.
- Former Arkansas State Representative Eddie Wayne Cooper of Melbourne, Arkansas, pleaded guilty in February 2018 to conspiracy to embezzle more than $4 million from Preferred Family Healthcare.
- Former Arkansas State Senator and State Representative Henry “Hank” Wilkins IV was sentenced in January 2023 for his role in a conspiracy to commit federal program bribery and devising a scheme and artifice to defraud and deprive the citizens of the state of Arkansas of their right to honest services.
The FBI, IRS-CI, the Offices of the Inspectors General from the Departments of Justice, Labor, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation investigated the cases.
Senior Litigation Counsel Marco A. Palmieri, Director of Enforcement & Litigation for the Election Crimes Branch Sean F. Mulryne, and Trial Attorney Jacob Steiner of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section; Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Mazzanti for the Eastern District of Arkansas; Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Randall Eggert and Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon T. Kempf for the Western District of Missouri; and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Aaron L. Jennen and Steven M. Mohlhenrich for the Western District of Arkansas are prosecuting the separate criminal cases.