A judge on Wednesday sentenced Robert David Tackett to a reduced 15-month prison sentence for leaving timer-rigged cans of gasoline in his Maumelle home last year during a traumatic divorce from his wife of 36 years, with whom he co-owned a popular bakery.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommended 18 to 24 months in prison for Tackett, 64, who told a federal agent shortly after his arrest April 5 that his plan was to kill himself in a hot tub by slashing his wrists while the house burned down around him. David Oliver, the agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified a couple of weeks later that Tackett said he changed his mind, however, and decided to let the house burn while he went to the lake, so his wife wouldn't receive any money from selling the property.
Tackett's wife, Roxane, had moved out of the house, but she testified last year that on the morning of April 3, the day after the couple met with attorneys and David Tackett learned he was $100,000 further in debt than he realized, she went to the house, fearing her husband was dead. Earlier that day, she said, she had found him at their eatery, Morningside Bagels, where he had damaged equipment with an ax and drilled holes in basins.
Upon opening the front door of the house at 105 Creek Valley Lane, Roxane Tackett testified, she smelled a strong odor of gasoline and contacted authorities. Oliver said police and firefighters found homemade incendiary devices in three closets and on an upstairs landing. He said each was made of a 5-gallon can of gasoline, halogen light bulb filaments, newspaper and steel wool, and was connected to an automatic lamp timer that was set to 5 p.m. and plugged in.
Oliver said the presence of charred newspaper indicated that at least one of the devices had been activated, probably at 5 p.m. the previous day. He said the devices would have kept going off at 5 p.m. every day as the paper dried out, and may have caused "a very large and fast-moving fire."
Two days after the devices were found, authorities discovered Tackett's missing truck and boat trailer at Lake Ouachita, Oliver said. He described how federal agents, assisted by the Montgomery County sheriff's office, the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, using a helicopter and boats, chased Tackett down, Miami Vice-style, on an island.
Inside Tackett's boat, the agent said, officers found blood from Tackett's wrist and a loaded shotgun.
The agent said that Tackett "was frank about it. He lost his mind. ... He was losing everything and didn't want her getting more money."
Tackett, who has been detained since April over a judge's concern about his mental stability and his estranged wife's safety, pleaded guilty Sept. 18 to possession of an unregistered destructive device, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
At his sentencing hearing Wednesday, defense attorney Molly Sullivan of the federal public defender's office cited her client's otherwise law-abiding life and several serious health conditions he suffers from, in asking that he be sentenced to time served -- about 11 months. Federal sentencing guidelines, which consider individual circumstances, recommended 18 to 24 months behind bars.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens, citing the "extreme contrast" of a violent act perpetrated by an otherwise nonviolent person, objected to the "time served" request but said he wouldn't oppose a slight downward variance.
As Roxane Tackett looked on from the courtroom gallery, her estranged husband -- from whom her divorce isn't yet final -- stood and told the judge that he was "sorry I put other people's lives at stake." He also said, "I turned my life over to God and I expect him to lead me down the right path."
U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. told Tackett that although the recommended sentence seems "pretty close to what the law should require," the circumstances of the case, including Tackett's otherwise law-abiding life, should be taken into account. He said that given "the great personal stress you were under," and the fact that "you attempted to take your own life," he believed a slightly lower sentence of 15 months still "sends the right message about deterrence."
Marshall credited Tackett for the time he has already spent in jail while awaiting the outcome of his case, leaving him with about four months to serve in federal prison. The judge said he would recommend, at Sullivan's suggestion, that the federal Bureau of Prisons house Tackett at a federal medical facility. He said he also would recommend that the prison require Tackett to participate in mental-health counseling, "because we all know that's needed, and you expressed a desire to participate in that."
A charge of attempted arson that Tackett still faces in state court is expected to be dismissed as a result of the federal sentence, but Marshall said he would order the federal sentence to be served concurrently with the state sentence, to ensure he isn't punished twice for the same conduct.
Marshall ordered Tackett to remain under the supervision of federal probation officers for two years after his release from prison.
Metro on 02/21/2019