Hardin seeks to cut probation term

Former University of Central Arkansas President Lu Hardin asked a federal court Wednesday for an early end to the supervised release that he was sentenced to in September 2011 after he pleaded guilty to two felony charges.

Hardin, 63, has completed 3 1/2 years of a five-year sentence, attorney Chuck Banks wrote in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock.

"The Defendant is currently under low intensity supervision, and has been in complete compliance of the terms of his supervised release under direction and monitoring of the U.S. Probation Office," Banks wrote. "Mr. Hardin's exemplary performance on supervised release warrants a reduction in his terms of supervised release."

Hardin pleaded guilty in March 2011 in U.S. District Court in Little Rock to one count of money laundering and one count of wire fraud. The charges resulted from a memorandum he falsified in 2008 in an attempt to persuade UCA's board of trustees to speed up a $300,000 bonus for him. Hardin got the bonus but later repaid it under faculty pressure.

Hardin faced prison time and a hefty fine but avoided both.

In September 2011, he was sentenced to five years of probation and ordered to perform 200 hours of community service per year. By then, he already had surrendered his law license.

The nature of Hardin's community service has not been disclosed, and Banks did not return phone messages Wednesday.

Speaking in court before his sentencing, Hardin talked of a gambling problem that led to deep debts and his downfall. He called the memo a "horrendous mistake."

Hardin, a state senator for 14 years, lost a race for the U.S. Senate in 1996. He went on to become director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education in 1997 and UCA president in September 2002. He resigned from the UCA position in late August 2008, after about two months of contention over the bonus and the memo.

Hardin returned to higher education June 30, 2009, when he was hired as president of the private Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida. He quit that job just days before he entered the guilty pleas in Little Rock.

UCA spokesman Christina Madsen said Wednesday that the university had no comment on Hardin's motion.

In it, Banks wrote that Hardin has been in communication with an assistant probation officer regarding the request to end the supervised release.

Hardin's case was originally before U.S. District Judge James M. Moody. Because Moody has since retired, the case has been assigned to his son, Judge James M. Moody Jr.

State Desk on 04/16/2015

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