Jon Woods

During his first term he showed his ability to bring people of differing points of view together by making Arkansas' first Umbilical Cord Blood Bank a reality. This institution harvests primitive stem cells from umbilical cords,[14] helping advance stem cell research without abandoning his pro-life convictions. Along with Senator Johnny Key, Woods was awarded the Invest in Life award for his work on the project.[15][16]

In his second term during the 87th General Assembly in 2009, he became the chair of the technology committee,[17] an unheard of feat for a second term member from the minority party. He sponsored legislation that helped amend the Arkansas State Constitution granting the citizens of Arkansas the right to hunt, fish, trap, and harvest wildlife.[18] It was referred to the voters in 2010 where it passed with 612,495 votes or 82.78% of the vote with 127,444 or 17.22% voting against.[19]

In his third and final term in the Arkansas House of Representatives in the 88th General Assembly in 2011, Woods took on sex offenders, increasing the penalties for sex crimes[20] and expanding notification to the public about sex offenders living in their neighborhoods.[21] He also sponsored legislation to create the Office of Health Information Technology to implement electronic health records in Arkansas[22] and co-sponsored legislation to create a state sales tax holiday weekend for families to buy school supplies.[23]

Woods served on the Senate Insurance and Commerce, Joint Performance Review, Public Retirement & Social Security Programs, and Judiciary committees as well as the Arkansas Legislative Council.[24] Woods sponsored Carter's Law in 2013, creating a comprehensive program of education regarding shaken baby syndrome.[25]

In the 90th General Assembly Woods earned the highest civilian recognition from the Arkansas National Guard, and referred his third and fourth ballot measures to the voters.[26]

In March 2016, Jeff Oland of Farmington, Arkansas filed a complaint with the Arkansas Ethics Commission against then State Senator Jon Woods.[27] Oland accused then State Senator Jon Woods of coordinating mailers from his previous 2012-election campaign with a conservative organization called Conservative Arkansas PAC. Oland's complaint triggered an investigation by the Arkansas Ethics Commission. After more than a dozen interviews and reviewing all the evidence, the Ethics Commission determined that there had been no violations and no laws broken. In May 2016, the Ethics Commission voted 3-0 to dismiss Mr. Oland's complaint against Woods.[28]

On March 1, 2017, Woods was found guilty of fifteen federal counts for his collusion in a kickback scheme involving Oren Paris, III, the president of Ecclesia College in Springdale, Arkansas, where Woods resides. Others indicted were Randell Shelton, Jr., of Alma in Crawford County, Arkansas, and Micah Neal, a former state representative who pleaded guilty to one act of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud.[29][30][31][32] The trial was controversial due in part to the actions of the lead FBI agent, Robert Cessario, who pleaded guilty in a plea agreement on August 17, 2022, to destroying exculpatory evidence.[33][34] March 1, 2017, Woods was indicted for his alleged collusion in a kickback scheme involving Oren Paris, III, president of Ecclesia College (a Christian college), and Randell Shelton, Jr. Woods' attorney, Patrick Benca, denied the allegations.[35][36]

One of the many trial delays was due to the destruction of evidence by FBI agent Robert Cessario. According to his own court testimony, Cessario wiped his undercover computer clean on three separate occasions since the investigation began.[37][38][39] He had it wiped once professionally at Ozark Computer Works in Bentonville, AR for $59.50 in cash on Dec. 4, 2017.[40] He then wiped it at least twice more himself.[41][42] In December, 2017 he was removed from the case and was put under investigation by the Office of Inspector General, according to court documents, and faced criminal prosecution.[43]

Two days of pretrial hearings, January 25 and 26, 2018, laid out in detail the circumstances under which the FBI (Cessario's) computer was used to collect copies of the audio files recorded covertly by former State Representative Micah Neal.[44] Mr. Neal has denied that the government asked him to conduct the undercover audio recordings and testified that the "pen" used as the recording device was his idea.[45] However, the FBI agent improperly wiped his laptop sometime in early 2017, December 4, 2017 and then wiped it again December 7, 2017. The erasing of the files cast doubt on whether a true copy of all the files was ever provided to the defense or if the FBI had in fact requested Micah Neal conduct the recordings.[46] Thirty nine audio recordings were provided to the defense in April, 2017. Gaps in the timeline of the recordings were discovered by the defense, which led them to request that the U.S. Attorney turn over ALL of the audio recordings. This request resulted in the U.S. Attorney finding an additional 79 audio recordings in November 2017.[47] These audios contained recordings of many different people.[48] The words Mr. Neal himself used in these recordings is possibly evidence that he was actually doing the recordings on behalf of the government.[49] Upon cross examination of why FBI agent Robert Cessario wiped his laptop, the agent said it was because the government owned laptop contained his personal medical records and he didn't want those to become public. Defense attorney Patrick Benca pointed out that Robert Cessario plans a medical malpractice suit that will make his medical issues public record anyway and the excuse of wiping the laptop to prevent medical records from being made public doesn't pass the smell test. FBI agent Robert Cessario acknowledged that he does plan on suing his doctor, but said any lawsuit he files is unlikely to get the attention the Woods case has received.[50]

"Do you think what you did was proper?" asked Chad Atwell, attorney for one of Woods' co-defendants. "No. I should not have done that," Cessario replied.[51]

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks wondered aloud from the bench Friday, January 26, 2018, why attorneys in the case did not get pristine copies from the computer in the law office of Neal's attorney, Shane Wilkinson of Bentonville, Arkansas.[52]

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Elser then told Judge Brooks that late Thursday, January 25, 2018, the FBI sent a computer forensics examiner to Shane Wilkinson's office to make copies of specific files. Mr. Elser then submitted a flash drive to the court which he said contained those specific files. However, upon cross-examination (by the defense) of the expert who collected the copies, it was only then revealed that the files were not taken from the law firm's original hard drive that had stored the audio directly from Neal. The expert had been informed by Mr. Wilkinson's paralegal, Karri Layton, that the hard drive crashed on December 27, 2017, and the whole computer had been replaced, which gives the appearance of a coverup between Micah Neal's attorney Shane Wilkinson and the FBI and the Department of Justice.[53]

Defense Attorney Chad Atwell of Fayetteville conducted the cross-examination of FBI computer forensics examiner, Rebecca Passmore. It was during this lengthy cross examination that Ms. Passmore revealed the Dec. 27 crash and that the original hard drive was nowhere to be found. "I am at a loss for words," Atwell said, when asked for comment after the hearing. "Our pristine copy just went up in smoke," said defense attorney Shelly Koehler of Fayetteville.[54]

It was ordered by the court that an investigation be conducted on Feb. 7, 2018, with the help of FBI computer forensics expert, Amy Corrigan, to search for the original hard drive to Wilkinson's law office computer. It was later revealed that attorney Shane Wilkinson had his hard drive replaced at Megabyte in Bentonville, Arkansas and that Megabyte had backed up his hard drive. Once the backup was reviewed an additional audio was recovered that the DOJ and defense had never heard. In all, 39 audios were given to the defense in April 2017, 79 additional audios in November 2017, and one audio was discovered in February 2018 for a total of 119 audio files (140 hours) which were covertly recorded by Micah Neal.[55]

Conviction

Jon Woods of Springdale, Arkansas, was accused of soliciting and accepting kickbacks for the distribution of government funds. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, twelve counts of wire fraud, and money laundering.[56] Woods was sentenced by Judge Timothy Brooks to 220 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution on September 6, 2018.[57] Brooks ordered Woods to serve less than the Federal sentencing guidelines, which called for a term between 324–405 months.[58]

FBI Agent Pleads Guilty, and Sentenced

On August 17, 2022, Robert Cessario signed a plea agreement stating he was guilty of corrupt destruction of record in an official proceeding.[59][60]

Robert Cessario was the lead FBI investigator in the Jon Woods case. The jury never knew that Cessario destroyed his official work laptop. All of this information was learned during the pre trial phase, and the defense and prosecution were ordered by Judge Timothy Brooks to not bring it up in any way in the presence of the jury.[61][62] As stated in his plea agreement, Cessario erased the laptop hard drive so that it could not be used in the Jon Woods trial.[63][64][65] Cessario could have received up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. On January 5, 2023, he was sentenced to 6 months home confinement without a monitor, followed by a three year probation period, and a $25,000 fine.[66]