RACKETEERING, EXTORTION AMONG CHARGES AGAINST EX-PROSECTUOR

Former Saline County Prosecutor Dan Harmon was convicted in June 1997
of one count of racketeering, three counts of conspiring to commit
extortion and one count of conspiring to possess and distribute marijuana.

He was recently released after eight years in federal prison and will
live in a halfway house for several months.

The racketeering charge alleged that Harmon used his 7th Judicial
District prosecuting attorney's office - his jurisdiction included
Saline, Grant and Hot Spring counties - as an illegal crime
organization to obtain money and drugs.

Harmon was acquitted of additional charges, including one count of
witness tampering, one count of retaliation against an informant, two
counts of possession with the intent to distribute drugs and a fourth
count of extortion.

He served as prosecuting attorney for the 7th Judicial District until
he resigned in July 1996 as part of a plea agreement in state court.

Prosecutors were aided by many witnesses who were either charged with
or convicted of crimes. The witnesses included Harmon co-defendants
Holly DuVall (Harmon's former wife) and John Steward, who each
pleaded to charges and testified against Harmon.

In the possession with the intent to distribute marijuana charge, the
jury decided that Harmon participated in and benefited from the sale
of 117 pounds of marijuana that was found during a traffic stop.

The driver, who was included in the federal indictment against
Harmon, was freed after the traffic stop.

The three extortion convictions had Harmon taking money from
individuals caught with drugs in exchange for forgetting about prosecution.

The final extortion charge on which he was convicted had Harmon
taking $10,000 in exchange for allowing an Indiana resident to leave
the state without being prosecuted after being found with drugs
during a traffic stop.

In order to convict on the racketeering charge, the jury had to find
that Harmon used his prosecuting attorney's office to commit at least
two of the acts outlined in the other 10 charges in the indictment.

Harmon pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges connected to an
attack on Saline County sheriff's deputies and no contest to a third
misdemeanor related to an assault on Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
reporter Rodney Bowers. Charges related to an alleged attack on
DuVall were dropped.

When his trial ended, Harmon claimed, as he did prior to the trial,
that he was not guilty of the charges.

He was sentenced initially to 97 months in federal prison. An
additional 37 months were added later on convictions for possession
with intent to distribute methamphetamine, attempting to distribute
methamphetamine and two counts of using a telephone to commit a drug
offense. All of the charges stemmed from a trip Harmon made to his
girlfriend's Conway apartment complex while he had been ordered to
home detention in Saline County.