What really happened, and why didn’t the Little Rock police investigate?
Dr. Frederick Fields, Student Services Director of the Little Rock School District (LRSD,) has a complex legal history. He’s had a lot of stuff (including a firearm) stolen from his house, a check forged with his signature, and he filed a guilty plea for some slumlord behavior in 2015.
Freddie Fields also loaned $100,000 to Brent Mitchell (then-principal at Fuller Middle School) in February 2013, at a “loan shark” interest rate of 100%. Mitchell was supposed to pay back $200,000 to Fields by May 2013. Although Brent Mitchell had no trouble paying out cash incentives to his students that year, Mitchell didn’t make his loan payments to Fields on time.
Ultimately Freddie Fields sued Brent Mitchell — and won, albeit without the excessive $100,000 “interest” he originally tried to charge. To avoid garnishment, Brent Mitchell filed bankruptcy in 2014, 2015, and 2016. All three bankruptcy cases were dismissed. Fields garnished Mitchell at his job with Responsive Ed Solutions and Pine Bluff Lighthouse Charter School, ultimately driving Brent Mitchell entirely out of Arkansas.*
While the Fields v. Mitchell lawsuit was going on, Mitchell’s district opened an investigation into an “undisclosed complaint” against him, but allowed Mitchell to resign before the investigation was completed.
Honestly, I wonder if this whole lawsuit stemmed not from a loan, but from blackmail. Do you think Freddie Fields found out Brent Mitchell was abusing his powerful position, and threatened to expose him unless Mitchell paid him off? If that were true, it would speak poorly of the character of both men.
Still, Freddie Fields’ financial misdeeds and slumlord behavior pale in comparison to what I found on a police report from 2016.
Please note: This evening, after I asked Freddie Fields for a comment on this story, the victim on this police report stated that it was, indeed, a false report. However, I have been in contact with the victim for nine days, with no denial until tonight — AFTER Fields found out I was preparing to publish.
To Freddie Fields and Jovi Wansley: I apologize for “outing” your sexual past and medical history with this post. However, given the nature of our interactions over the past few weeks, I believe there is a pattern of uninvestigated, unprosecuted crime afoot in Arkansas — and your story is part of that bigger picture.
On January 6, 2016, Jovi Wansley (then 26 years old) told the Little Rock Police Department (LRPD) that Freddie Fields (then 52 years old) had deliberately exposed Wansley to HIV — the incurable virus that causes AIDS.
According to this police report, Wansley and Fields were sexually involved with each other for three years, during the time period when Frank Williams (then principal of Henderson Middle School) also allegedly participated in explicit acts at Fields’ house.
Wansley reported to LRPD that Fields had deliberately exposed him to HIV. In Arkansas, deliberately exposing someone to HIV is a felony. However, two days after Wansley filed this report, Civilian Communications Dispatcher Varnell Norman (whose immediate family member, Cassandra Norman, worked in LRSD Special Programs under the supervision Freddie Fields) amended the report, writing, “Victim (Wansley) called and advised he falsified this report.” I wondered whether Fields pressured the Norman family to amend the police report, so I asked Wansley directly. Wansley declined to answer.
Normally, if LRPD discovers somebody filed a false police report, the state presses criminal charges against whomever lied to the police. This addendum says Jovi Wansley confessed to filing a false police report — but nobody prosecuted Wansley for this crime.
Upon reading this report, my questions were: Did Varnell Norman amend the report without Wansley’s knowledge or consent? Did Freddie Fields bribe or coerce Wansley into amending the report? Or did Wansley truly regret the report he had filed, and LRPD generously decided to overlook Wansley’s crime of filing a false police report?
I have reviewed multiple statements from LRSD parents saying they have been bribed or coerced into cooperating with Fields and the Little Rock School District. None of these statements have yet been reviewed by a judge, but they are evidence in ongoing court cases against LRSD.
I have also spoken with multiple LRSD staff members who allege a close relationship between Freddie Fields and Governor Asa Hutchinson. Indeed, Freddie Fields has been caught abusing his power within LRSD to attempt to throw an election in favor of Hutchinson’s friend, Stacy Hurst, but no disciplinary action was ever taken against Fields.
Governor Hutchinson surely has the power to protect a friend (or family member) from criminal investigation if he chooses, just as he had the power to appoint the failed Republican candidate to his cabinet when she lost — despite Fields’ efforts on her behalf.
I knew if I wanted to find out the truth, I would have to contact Jovi Wansley.
After I reached out to him via Facebook, Jovi Wansley called me last week. He refused to answer my questions, though, and ultimately hung up on me. I sent him some reading material (news articles, all the police reports I’d received from LRPD, statements given to me by LRSD employees, and what I knew about upcoming news coverage of LRSD.)
I told Jovi I would continue working on my story without his input, but that I would appreciate any answers he was willing to provide if he ever decided to cooperate with me. On Wednesday, Jovi Wansley wrote, “I’ve had time to think and to really ponder on this issue that you have brought to my attention….” and offered some terms under which he’d be willing to cooperate. I was thrilled! I did my best to meet his terms, but failed. I figured I’d have to write the story without his help.
Yesterday afternoon, having finished my rough draft, I emailed Freddie Fields directly, asking him for a comment.
Almost immediately, Freddie Fields’ personal attorney contacted me to transmit an undated letter allegedly sent by Jovi Wansley to Freddie Fields on July 5, 2019 (five days prior to the day that Jovi told me he’d prayed about it and would help me.) The letter states, unequivocally, that Jovi had “clearly communicated that the information was untrue.”
Well, that’s not true. Jovi Wansley didn’t confirm or deny anything to me prior to yesterday evening.
He didn’t even answer a simple yes or no question two days ago when I asked him, “Just yes/no did you really call back and say it had been a false police report?”
However, once Fields hired an after-hours attorney to persuade me not to publish this story, and I sent Wansley a copy of the letter I received from the attorney, Wansley did confirm that he had written the letter. He wrote, “Please don’t publish this to the blog you will be hurting me and other people who are innocent.”
I responded, “You are asking me to trust you now, and to take your emotions into account. But why didn’t you tell me this directly when I asked? I offered to redact your name and the medical information if you were willing to answer my questions but you did not agree.”
As of midnight, July 12, Jovi Wansley has not responded to me further.
Freddie Fields’ lawyer, David Davies, has asked me to publish this statement on behalf of his client:
I regret Ms. Lyon-Ballay’s decision to post erroneous, personal accusations that have been both recanted to the police shortly afterwards by the accuser and, also, have been directly recanted to Ms. Lyon-Ballay by the original accuser three years later. He has stated unequivocally that the entire report was untrue. He has begged her not to publish falsehoods that dredge up an error in judgment from his past. An error that Mr. Fields forgave, even as it threatened his public work. Yet, despite all of the direct refutation of the truthfulness of the report, Ms. Elizabeth Lyon-Ballay has made the decision to publish this report. This decision amounts to willful defamation of character. This hurtful use of her bully pulpit doesn’t serve her stated goal of “rooting out corruption,” which we all can support, but, instead personally attacks two men who have vehemently denied the truth of the report both to the police, and, in the case of the accuser, to Ms. Lyon-Ballay, herself, on two separate occasions. We are deeply troubled by Ms. Lyon-Ballay’s willful act that seeks to spread clearly refuted information about two men whose lives and families matter.
Attorney David Davies, for Freddie Fields
If this were an isolated incident, I would probably not write about it. I believe every person has a right to “come out” (or not) in whatever manner they choose. I also know that HIV carries a stigma that is not easily overlooked in Arkansas, even though all workers are protected from termination on the basis of disability.
However, Freddie Fields’ neighbors tell me they have repeatedly tried to get LRPD to investigate incidents of arson, statutory rape, and drug activity — but have been told by friends within the Little Rock police force that Freddie Fields is untouchable. Fields’ neighbors assert that their friends in LRPD say they’ve been ordered to drop all investigations against him.
Therefore, I believe the public interest is better served by publishing this post in its entirety, rather than contributing to the silence that protects the people who claim to be “untouchable” under the law.
I started this blog to fight against the erosion of education-related laws and protections for children and teachers. My first post was about the “272 Broken Promises” of charter school waivers. I’ve advocated for ending the educator exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act at the federal level and against the waiver of Teacher Fair Dismissal in LRSD. I’ve used this blog to agitate for non-discriminatory enrollment and expulsion policies at Haas Hall Academy. I’ve argued for financial transparency within the teachers’ union and against violence toward children in LRSD schools.
When I write about Freddie Fields’ personal life, it is not to embarrass him or entertain you. It is to reinforce my blog’s main point: The “crisis” narrative of public education reform is just a marketing strategy designed to sell us on “bold” policy solutions. In truth, we do not need emergency measures like state takeover, waivers of law, school vouchers, or an unqualified politician at the head of the Arkansas Department of Education. These “reforms” are demonstrably harming children and teachers.
Instead, we need to do the difficult but meaningful work of actually implementing and enforcing the laws we already have. Evaluate administrators using LEADS and real legislative audits. Evaluate teachers using TESS and progressive discipline. Discipline students with restorative justice and positive behavior interventions. Hire more guidance counselors. Maintain current Conflict of Interest forms, and stop district administrators from participating in self-dealing contracts that buy and sell our children for cash.
If we let the rich and powerful live outside the law, as Freddie Fields seems to do (with protection from his friends in high places,) we leave ourselves vulnerable to abuse against our children, institutional discrimination, fraudulent waste of our money, and a “brain drain” of good teachers leaving the profession.
Nobody is above the law. Not even in Arkansas.
Enforce the laws so we can trust that our children will be safe, included, and educated when they go to school.
*Interesting side note: Between the time when I asked Freddie Fields for a comment on this story and when I spoke with Freddie Fields’ lawyer, Brent Mitchell blocked me from viewing his LinkedIn and Facebook profiles.
Brent Mitchell also complained to Attorney General Leslie Rutledge that I was “basically harrassing” him when I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for a copy of his personnel file from Pulaski County Special School District. Fortunately, AG Rutledge opined in my favor.