BENTON — Dan Harmon, a former prosecutor turned convict, is back on the government payroll.
He was pinched by federal investigators more than a decade ago for taking drugs and money from criminals in exchange for dropped charges. Now, Harmon makes $9 an hour working temporarily for the Saline County Circuit Court clerk.
The white-haired 63-yearold spends most days in a dank garage across from the Saline County courthouse sorting through old civil files, making sure what has been scanned into a computer matches the paper file.
It's one of several part-time jobs Harmon has found since being released from federal prison in late 2005.
On weekends, the former prosecuting attorney works with mentally ill adults at a rehabilitation center. And he occasionally runs tuxedos from Benton to Little Rock for a friend's business.
But he knows his ties to county government are likely to start a firestorm.
"What about redemption? What about forgiveness?" he asked in a recent interview.
As Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" played at a Waffle House, Harmon leaned over his eggs and in a hushed and husky voice admitted he has done wrong.
But he said drug dealers and the ex-wife who testified against him made up stories to get outof their own legal troubles, and the FBI was out to get him, nearly mimicking what he said on the stand in U.S. District Court in Little Rock in 1997.
Harmon was the prosecuting attorney for Hot Spring, Grant and Saline counties from 1979 to 1980 and again from 1991 until 1996, when he was forced to resign after facing assault charges in state court.
He owns up to two of the accusations he faced at the time: He used drugs, and he beat an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter pursuing a story about the region's troubled and now defunct drug task force.
"Did I deserve to go to jail? Yes," he said. "I did drugs, I deserved to go to jail."
A federal jury found him guilty of five of 11 charges, including racketeering by using his office to get drugs and money. Convicted drug dealers testified that Harmon asked for large sums of money to make their cases go away. One woman said he asked for sex in exchange for dropped charges against her husband.
While awaiting sentencing on those charges, he ran afoul of the law again at a girlfriend's apartment in Conway during a night of sex and, authorities said, drug use. That episode added three years to his eight-year sentence.
"You're seeing the downfall of my life. It's women," he said with a mischievous smile.
But that's all in the past, he said, and now he's trying to stay out of trouble with his probation officer while he serves his last year of supervised release.
Divorced four times, he said he is focusing on spending time with his three grandchildren.
He's also applying to graduate school at University of Arkansas at Little Rock to study social work.
Around town, Harmon has his share of friends and enemies. Some - including those who hold public office - said they don't want to say much about him for fear of being associated with the convicted felon. Others don't want to cross him.
His job with the clerk's office is temporary. He started in March after his childhood friend, Circuit Court Clerk Doug Kidd, approached him.
"I really wanted someone with some experience who knows what he's looking for," Kidd said, adding that the project will probably take two months.
When asked if he has ever asked Harmon about using his office as a criminal enterprise to get drugs and money, Kidd shrugged it off, saying "I don't know about all that."
"People make mistakes," he said.
Arkansas, Pages 17, 21 on 04/06/2008