The Little Rock attorney who has been sitting in the Pulaski County jail since March 22 for civil contempt of court asked the Arkansas Supreme Court last week to look at his case.
Matthew M. Henry, 45, was sent to the slammer after Pulaski County Circuit Judge Mackie Pierce ordered him in January to return $25,000 of his client’s money and he didn’t do it.
Henry asked to be released from jail last month, because he said he didn’t have the money.
Pierce denied his request. Henry also was charged in May in Little Rock District Court with felony theft of property, a charge stemming from the missing $25,000. He pleaded not guilty.
Henry’s criminal defense attorney, Jeff Rosenzweig, asked the state’s high court in a filing Wednesday to order Henry released from jail.
“It is now obvious that Henry does not have the funds or the present ability to pay the $25,000 at issue,” Rosenzweig wrote in his filing. He asked for a quick consideration of his request. “Henry’s continued incarceration violates the prohibition on imprisonment for debt.”
Pierce said during a hearing in Henry’s case last month that he knows he can’t jail people for not paying a debt. Rosenzweig quoted the transcript of the hearing in his filing.
“But here’s my situation, the record is replete with your client assuring this Court that he had the money,” Pierce said.
Henry also wrote Pierce a letter “indignant that I would even question whether or not he has the funds,” Pierce said.
But Henry didn’t return his client’s cash.
“He holds the keys to the jail cell,” Pierce said. “Whenever he is ready to turn over those funds, I’m ready to release him and let the criminal system work its way however it chooses to do so.”
In March, the Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct ordered Henry’s law license temporarily suspended because an estimated $400,000 in client funds stemming from a Jefferson County probate case had allegedly vanished.
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