A 39-year-old Little Rock man whose 5-year-old son died in a car wreck when the man was driving with drugs in his system cried as he accepted a probationary sentence on Monday.
Marcus Mario Winston appeared composed as he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor negligent homicide, reduced from a felony count, for the September 2011 crash that killed 5-year-old Marquis Demario Winston.
But he began to sob deeply and was overcome with emotion when asked by Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen to put into his own words what he had done. He said he had been taking his children to school when he crashed.
At the request of prosecutors, Winston was also fined $500 and will have to undergo drug and alcohol treatment, with random drug tests, if his probation officer believes treatment to be necessary.
Deputy prosecutor Emily Abbott told the judge that the little boy had not been properly restrained in his father's 2004 Dodge Ram pickup, and he was thrown from the vehicle. The one-vehicle crash occurred on Temple Street behind the city airport, the prosecutor said.
Court filings show the boy had been sitting on the center console of the pickup, and his body was found 155 feet from the crashed pickup. He was propelled through the passenger window and suffered severe head trauma, court records show.
A crash report states that Winston was westbound near the intersection of Ninth and Temple streets when he ran off the road and hit the guardrail. Winston and the little boy's older sister, Aniya Winston, were not seriously injured, according to the report.
A blood sample tested positive for cocaine, marijuana, anti-anxiety medication and alcohol, court records show, but his attorney Ron Davis had disputed the legality of the testing.
The children's mother, Yolanda Davis Winston, 38, of Fort Smith, left Marcus Winston the month after the crash and filed for divorce in May. The couple had been married six years and also have a 15-year-old daughter.
Winston is also awaiting trial on a terroristic-threatening charge, accused of threatening to kill a man, Eric Gerard Holmes, last August.
His lawyer in that case, Mac Carder, told the judge they hoped to have that charge resolved by September. Carder said the accusations involve a business dispute. Court records show Holmes filed suit in December against the Winstons, claiming they owe him $5,000 for work done on their home.
Court records show that in June 1997, Winston, when he was 22, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted at trial of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery for his role in the July 1994 slaying of 30-year-old Victor Damone Terry of Houston, Texas.
Terry was shot in the head and chest at a southwest Little Rock motel. Prosecutors said he was in Little Rock on a cross-country drug-selling trip. At trial, Winston denied knowing anyone would shoot or kill Terry.
He told police everyone involved, including two or three women, later divided up 1 1/2 ounces of cocaine and $900 to $1,200 in cash that they got from Terry.
The purported trigger man, Michael "Big Mike" Whitten, now 40, of Hot Springs, was sentenced to 80 years after being convicted in September 1996 of first-degree murder and aggravated robbery. He can qualify for parole in September 2016.
The other accomplice, Milo DeShawn Jefferson, now 39, of Little Rock was convicted in December 1996 of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years. He has since been released from prison.
Metro on 07/22/2014