The man charged with two misdemeanor counts of terroristic threatening against the Little Rock city manager and another city employee was found guilty Wednesday in county district court.
Pulaski County District Judge Wayne Gruber imposed $650 in fines, plus court costs and a year's jail time that will be suspended and dropped if Luke Skrable is not charged with any crimes during that time.
Skrable said after the hearing that he would appeal his conviction to Pulaski County Circuit Court.
Skrable, 57, is a critic of Little Rock officials, often writing email complaints and sending copies to city employees and members of the Board of Directors.
Police charged him with two counts of terroristic threatening and one count of making a terroristic threat in January after he sent an email to City Manager Bruce Moore about an hour after being escorted out of a city board meeting. The latter charge was dismissed by prosecutors.
At Wednesday's trial, Skrable faced the two charges of terroristic threatening for the email to Moore and for a voice message left with the Public Works Department's administrative assistant, Sue Hulsey, in September.
"I'm not happy. Someone's going to be bleeding today. You better have Honeywell or Loe call me this morning because I'm tired of waiting. ... If it don't happen by noon today I'm going to rain toads down on Public Works. Thank you very much," Skrable was heard saying in a recording of the September voice message played Wednesday in the courtroom. Jon Honeywell is the Public Works director and Ronny Loe is an assistant in the department.
The judge asked Skrable what he meant by "someone's going to be bleeding," and Skrable said he meant it figuratively like someone's wallet would be bleeding and that he didn't mean physical harm.
"My words were not the best choices, but I didn't mean to hurt anybody," he told Gruber.
In the January email to Moore, Skrable referred to being kicked out of a board meeting earlier that night and alleged that Moore stared him down. The email said in part, "Your days are numbered" and "We are in the same weight class, are you scared, is that it?"
Skrable said he meant Moore's days as city manager were numbered, and admitted to trying to get Moore fired for the past 13 years that Moore's been in the position.
"If I had someone who appeared in my court and said, 'Judge, your days are numbered,' I'd be very concerned about that statement," Gruber told Skrable.
Skrable said he understood. But his public defender, Margaret Ann Egan, argued that a victim's feelings aren't relevant when it comes to whether a person committed the criminal act of terroristic threatening in Arkansas.
Arkansas Code Annotated 5-13-301(b)(1) states, "A person commits the offense of terroristic threatening in the second degree if, with the purpose of terrorizing another person, the person threatens to cause physical injury or property damage to another person."
Skrable testified Wednesday that neither terrorizing nor injury was the intent of his statements to city officials.
But Gruber found him guilty of the offenses after a two-hour trial.
"I'm mindful of the contention of Mr. Skrable with respect to his First Amendment rights, but I find his behavior with respect to Mrs. Hulsey goes above and beyond the rights he's afforded by the U.S. and Arkansas constitutions," Gruber said.
The judge said the threat made to Moore was somewhat less serious, but serious nonetheless.
Moore testified that in his tenure as city manager he had never received a similar threat. Gruber seemed surprised at that comment, replying, "Really?"
Gruber kept in place a no-contact order against Skrable forbidding him from contacting Hulsey or Moore.
Skrable often sends email complaints or records requests to city officials, forwarding copies to dozens of recipients, including members of the press. Since his arrest in January, Skrable has sent at least 64 such emails. The most recent came at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday before his hearing. He sent a request to Pulaski County District Court asking for copies of the court's bond guidelines.
Four days after Skrable's Jan. 22 arrest, Moore issued a ban preventing him from entering any city-owned building. The ban remains in effect and was not addressed by the court Wednesday. Skrable said after the trial that he plans to file a lawsuit against the city when his criminal appeal is exhausted, but he did not specify on what grounds.
His demeanor when speaking is often flamboyant, and he made the judge laugh several times during Wednesday's trial, at one point saying in reference to Moore, "I don't think the man could manage his way out of a wet paper sack with a tear in it, sir."
Before Gruber's ruling, Egan argued that her client is just eccentric.
"I just think he sounds like this all of the time, and certainly it would make me step back. He's a scary sounding person, ... but I would argue that in both instances what he was was an angry, disgruntled citizen just trying to make sure somebody was listening to him," Egan said.
Metro on 07/23/2015