By Ray King
A Texas man convicted of involvement in a scheme to steal money from the Urban Renewal Agency has failed to convince the Arkansas Court of Appeals that there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
Rodrick Morris, 48, is serving 35 years in prison after being convicted of 38 counts of second-degree forgery and theft of property following a jury trial in 2023.
At trial, prosecutors alleged that Morris and the late Maurice Taggart defrauded the City of Pine Bluff of $667384 between May 2019 and August 2021 when Taggart was the Executive Director of the Urban Renewal Agency.
Taggart was also charged but was killed on Aug. 30, 2023 by his son in a shooting prosecutors described as “self-defense.”
Morris operated a company that had been contracted to conduct asbestos removal of houses being demolished by URA,
In his appeal, Morris argued that there was insufficient evidence to convict him o forgery because there was no evidence he was aware of Taggart’s scheme, but the appeals court said Morris did not deny receiving money from URA and there was no evidence that anyone did the work for Morris’s company for which it was paid.
He also contended that there was no evidence to support the theft conviction because the state did not present any evidence that he knowingly committed a theft, but his attorney failed to make that argument after prosecutors finished presenting its case, therefore the appeals court could not consider it.
Morris is serving his sentence at the Ester Unit and he will be eligible to apply for parole in 2030.
