Baker bribery case update: More legislative influence-peddling recounted by former UCA president Tom Courtway
Debra Hale-Shelton will be writing a fuller account later of events today in the
bribery trial of former Republican Party chair and senator Gilbert Baker, but she provided a summary of afternoon events that adds more to the morning account of special interest influence at the Arkansas legislature.
TOM COURTWAY: Fired Gilbert Baker as a lobbyist despite support from a current and former senator.
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Tom Courtway, former president of the
University of Central Arkansas, in a rambling, almost story-telling account of his hiring of Baker as a lobbyist for UCA and his ultimate firing. What Courtway related was told outside the hearing of the jury as Judge Price Marshall decided whether the Courtway testimony the government wanted to present was admissible. The judge decided that it was admissible, though he admonished the government to adduce testimony in a Q&A fo