Lu Hardindied, the president of the University of Central Arkansas, the chairman of the state department of higher education, and a former state senator, was announced Monday morning.
Before running for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1996, Hardin, 73, was a Democrat serving in the Arkansas Senate from 1983 to 1996. In January 1997, then-Governor Mike Huckabee appointed Hardin chair of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, succeeding longtime Diane Gilleland, after Hardin lost the Senate primary to Tim Hutchinson. (Public records indicate that in August 1997, Hardin registered as a Republican.)
Huckabee wrote a letter in August 2002 endorsing my buddy Lu Hardin for UCA president. Hardin was chosen by UCA trustees to be the school’s leader the following month. He spent over half a decade in that role. UCA boasted of the greatest enrollment gain in the school’s history during that period.
Although Hardin’s early years as UCA’s head were promising, his gambling addiction, his attempts to defraud the university of hundreds of thousands in accelerated bonus payments, his resignation, and his surprisingly light sentence for his crimes would ultimately overshadow his efforts at the university.
The UCA Board of Trustees decided in 2005 to offer Hardin a $300,000 deferred compensation plan in exchange for his continued employment at UCA for a further five years, until the fall of 2010. Hardin addressed two letters to the trustees in April and May of 2007, stating that one of them had asked him to consider a separate $100,000 bonus that would be given discreetly in Executive Session. He also explained how the bonus could be paid to him in July 2007 using private monies so that the public would not be aware of it.
Hardin wrote a letter to Randy Sims, the chairman of the UCA Board of Trustees, the next year. Three UCA vice presidents, Hardin informed Sims, had penned a memo urging UCA to expedite Hardin’s $300,000 bonus. The vice presidents were unaware that Hardin had authored the memo and added their names to it. The $300,000, less taxes, was given to Hardin in May 2008 after the board of trustees approved it.
But by July of that year, rumors were starting to spread regarding Hardin’s phony memo from the vice presidents. Hardin resigned as UCA president in August 2008 after repaying UCA the $400,000 he had received in the two bonus payments together with a board of trustees member. Hardin was charged with wire fraud and money laundering in 2011 after an FBI and Arkansas State Police investigation. In March of that year, he entered a guilty plea to the allegations.
In November 2011, Hardin was given his sentence. U.S. District Judge James Moody Sr. sentenced him to just five years of probation and 1,000 hours of community service divided into 200 hours annually, even though he was facing up to 30 years in federal prison and federal sentencing guidelines recommended a sentence of nine to 12 months incarceration. Hardin gained mercy in his sentence because the court stated that he thought Hardin’s activities were an aberration, which the Arkansas Times Max Brantley contested. He also received credit for collaborating with FBI investigators in a different case.
Chuck Banks, Hardin’s defense lawyer, described Hardin’s offense as an anomaly in a life filled with good deeds and aspirations. In expressing his regret, humility, and sadness, Hardin also referred to it as an anomaly. The judge also expressed his conviction that it was an anomaly.
That raises one question for me:
Since Hardin is considered a useful possible federal witness in an ongoing FBI investigation of other criminal behavior, how does aberration fit with the fact that he received a reduced sentence?
In the end, it would be discovered that Hardin required the extra money in 2008 to settle gambling debts accrued in Tunica after, according to Hardin, his wife introduced him to slot machines at a local casino, which soon captivated him and caused him to gamble an increasing amount of money.
In 2004, Hardin received his initial diagnosis of ocular cancer. According to his son Scott Hardin, he received a stage-four cancer diagnosis last year. Hardin’s wife and two grown children survive him.
It’s dragon-slaying time!
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