A local man who was arrested for embezzling funds from a local company in December was charged with 2,000 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing of matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child on Friday after pornographic material was allegedly found on his former work computer, according to city police and court records.
Bail was set at $1 million for Randall Allen Morris, 51, of Hot Springs, who has been in custody at the Garland County Detention Center on $50,000 bond since his arrest in December for theft of property more than $25,000, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and for allegedly embezzling more than $199,000 in company funds from Flossie's Funnel Cakes.
Each child pornography count is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
According to a search warrant for a computer on file with Garland County Circuit Court, an employee of Flossie's reported to the police department on Dec. 4, 2017, that he was cleaning out the business office of Morris, a recently terminated employee, and had been reviewing the contents of the electronic devices in the office that were used for business purposes.
The search warrant said that while viewing the contents of the flash drives located in the office, the employee observed "images and videos of child pornography on the thumb drives, including 1 to 2-year-old juveniles, and other juveniles in the 8 to 10-year-old age range, posing nude and engaging in sexual acts."
According to court records and the news release, Hot Springs police detectives seized four flash drives, a 500 GB hard drive, a file titled "Randall Morris Google Account Full," a laptop and a computer that were sent to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory for forensic analysis.
The release said the analysis revealed in excess of 2,000 images and videos of sexually explicit material involving a child.
Morris, who previously pleaded not guilty to the theft of property charge in Garland County District Court, is set to appear Tuesday in Garland County Circuit Court for a plea and arraignment hearing on theft charge.
According to the probable cause affidavit on the theft charge, on Nov. 3, 2017, police responded to Flossie's in reference to a theft and spoke to employees who stated they had logged onto the company's PayPal account that day and discovered another employee, identified as Morris, had made numerous transactions from the company's account into his own private PayPal account.
The transactions allegedly occurred several times each month from January to October 2017, ranging in amounts from $52 to more than $1,800. The employees noted none of the transactions were authorized.
Detective Patrick Langley received documentation from Flossie's corporate accounting firm, dated Dec. 7, which noted Morris had both diverted funds to himself and to unauthorized websites. They were reportedly able to determine Morris diverted $134,038 into his own account and $65,076.51 to the websites for his personal benefit. The total amount of funds diverted was $199,114.51, the affidavit states.
A warrant was issued for Morris' arrest and police had posted his photo on social media asking for the public's help in locating him.
Morris was taken into custody the evening of Dec. 19 at the Garland County Library, 1427 Malvern Ave., after he was spotted by a security guard, who called police.
Officer 1st Class Joey Williams said in December that about 90 minutes after the post was made, the guard at the library called and said he had observed Morris working at one of the library's computers.
District Court Judge Ralph Ohm later granted a motion for a gag order to limit pretrial publicity and issued an order barring Morris from future contact with all employees of Flossie's. Morris reportedly posted on social media indicating he would be "moving to Australia" the second week of January, so he was also ordered to surrender his passport within 24 hours. Morris had stated in court on Dec. 29, 2017, that he did not have a passport and was applying for a new one.
On Feb. 26, Morris entered a not guilty plea in circuit court in an unrelated case, where he is charged with aggravated assault, a felony. According to court records, the charge stems from an incident that allegedly occurred at the Dodge Store, 640 E. Grand, on Nov. 7, 2017. Morris allegedly pointed a black handgun at a man.
Local on 03/03/2018