19 Feb 2019
ID Files Update
Dan Harmon/Public Officials
Support From High-level Players Inexplicable
By Jean Duffey
The story of Dan Harmon is as much about the public officials who supported and protected him as it is about Harmon himself. His power over so many high-level players would be inexplicable but for the Saline Memorial Hospital scandal
In summary, the hospital administrator, embezzled hospital funds to finance a party house, always supplied with the best wine, food, dope, and party girls. High level state leaders were frequent guests, but did not know that every room was wired with secret cameras and recording devices throughout.
When the party house was raided, Judge John Cole appointed Harmon as special prosecutor, who took possession of all the evidence. The party tapes were never seen again. The possible use by Harmon of one of those tapes is suggested on Chuck Banks’ page under Bad Guys. The newspaper accounts of the Saline Memorial Hospital scandal are under Saline County Investigations.
No surprise then that Cole appointed Harmon to lead the county grand jury investigation of the “train deaths.” Also,no surprise that during the investigation, witnesses turned up dead, and nothing useful came from the grand jury other than their frustration that they were fettered from doing their jobs, and what they wanted to report was disallowed by Cole. See video clip.
Harmon, a democrat, was well-publicized as a wife-beater, a drug distributor, and a tax-dodger, yet Attorney Ray Baxter, a democratic party leader, told reporters Harmon’s troubles are “none of the party’s business.”
Harmon was jailed for refusing to submit to drug testing as a condition of release at his arraignment hearing on federal tax charges, yet the district’s State Senator Charlie Cole Chaffin cheered and praised him for his “Constitutional” stance.
Arkansas’s Committee on Professional Conduct suspended Harmon’s license to practice law, yet a long list of public officials, including State Attorney General Winston Bryant, convinced the committee to nullify the order.
Harmon went on a crime spree of kidnapping, assault and battery and was charged with six felonies, yet Special Prosecutor Paul Boson reduced the six felonies to two misdemeanors, and Special Judge Hamilton Singleton slapped Harmon on the wrist.
A federal grand jury heard enough evidence to unanimously indict Harmon on various drug-related crimes, yet U.S. Attorney Chuck Banks sent the jury panel home and held a press conference clearing Harmon of all allegations. It truly is hard to believe that Harmon had something on all of these supporters and protectors, but an alternative explanation does not come to mind?
Perhaps a tape on someone who had influence/control over some of the others? We just don’t know. News articles chronicling the above are on the Saline County Investigation page.