Phillip Andrew Wilson of Mountain Home pled guilty to taking contraband into the Baxter County Detention Center in late February and was given three years in prison during a session of Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Ironically, when Wilson checked into the jail with the contraband, he was there to await bed space to open in the state prison system. He had just been sentenced to 10-years in prison on charges in earlier cases.
When he was being processed into the detention center, a member of the jail staff saw him pass something to another inmate who was sitting on a bench in the booking area.
According to the probable cause affidavit, Wilson admitted to passing a pack of cigarettes and lighter to the other inmate.
When confronted by staff, the receiving inmate produced the cigarettes and lighter. He had shoved both items down his pants.
Both Wilson and the other inmate were charged with furnishing, possessing or using prohibited articles.
His earliest case was filed in February 2021. He was arrested when an officer with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission observed a vehicle driven by the 31-year-old Wilson run a stop sign.
During the stop, Wilson is alleged to have told the officer that he was a convicted felon and that there was a weapon in the vehicle.
An officer with the Mountain Home Police Department arrived on scene to assist. The weapon was located. It was reported that the serial numbers on the barrel of the pistol had been ground off, but a single serial number was found on the back of the pistol. Using that number officers were able to determine the pistol had been reported stolen from Memphis, Tennessee.
A box was found in the vehicle containing ammunition for the gun as well as extra magazines.
2022 CASE
The second case opened on Wilson in Baxter County stems from a mid-September 2022 raid by law enforcement, including officers from the 14th Judicial District’s Drug Task Force, at a residence along Buzzard Roost Cutoff.
According to the probable cause affidavit, three other people were in the home and arrested during the raid.
In the room occupied by Wilson and 38-year-old Kaleena Bayleigh Clifton, officers reported finding a plastic bag holding 30 grams of a substance field-testing positive for methamphetamine, 19 Adderall pills, 63 Oxycodone pills, 20 Hydrocodone pills, 10 Suboxone pills and 51 Xanax pills.
Items of drug paraphernalia were also found in the room, including digital scales, small plastic bags commonly used to package drugs for sale, a container with several ground up blue pills and used syringes.
Officers also seized $1,450 in cash from Wilson and Clifton.
During the raid at the Buzzard Roost residence, police found a plastic bag that contained almost 115 grams of suspected methamphetamine in an unoccupied bedroom.
According to the probable cause affidavit, all four people at the house denied any knowledge of the drugs or items of paraphernalia found by police.
Two men from Memphis, 35-year-old Michael Keen and 40-year-old Roger Harris, were also in the residence the day of the raid. They had similar charges to those facing Wilson and Clifton. Those charges were dismissed by the state in late April last year.
State charges were dismissed against Kaleena Clifton after she and her husband were indicted by a federal grand jury on drug trafficking charges.
Wilson also has active criminal charges in Marion County stemming from a sale of almost 14 grams of methamphetamine he is reported to have made to a person working with law enforcement in June 2022.
A jury trial is set for May 6 in Marion County Circuit Court.
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