Former Mabelvale Middle School Principal Rhonda Hall will be in court on Halloween to answer for her violence toward a middle school student last January. Her husband, Nigel Hall, already had his trial date. He was found guilty of defrauding taxpayers of money intended to feed poor children in Little Rock, so he is currently serving time in federal prison.
Unemployed, husband-free, and apparently unhindered by the terms of her pre-trial release, Rhonda Hall’s social media posts suggest she has been vacationing at the beach to get away from it all.
Meanwhile, I’ve been looking into Rhonda Hall’s other active warrant that never got served. What sort of corrupt and ineffective police force fails to check for active warrants when a suspect turns herself in on an assault charge? LRPD, apparently.
Rhonda Hall’s husband, Nigel Hall, operated his fraudulent daycare facility in a building he shared with his father’s tax preparation service.
On December 7, 2016, Nigel Hall’s assistant at the daycare, Tiffany Hatton, filed a police report with LRPD. She stated that Rhonda Hall had burst into the daycare on December 2, accusing Nigel and Tiffany of conducting an extra-marital affair. Hatton asserts:
Mrs. Hall told me that she pulled her husband phone records and she stated, “STOP CALLING MY D#@! HUSBAND.” Mrs. Hall stormed out the room and I walked out as well. I opened up the door and she assumed that I was putting her out. Mrs. Hall then start pointing her finger in my face and said, “Somebody better come get this B@@#@ before I bust her in her MF@#@# head!”
Mrs. Hall threw all of Nigel Hall papers on the floor that was on his desk. She left Nigel office a mess. I got my purse and I left from that hostile environment. I was so embarrassed how Mrs. Hall treated me in the presence of my job. I literally cried and suffered all weekend because of Mrs. Hall acting in rage. Self Control, Self Discipline and integrity was not exemplified. Mrs. Hall was upset about hearsay.
Tiffany Hatton, 12/13/16: Email to Daniel Whitehorn and Joyce Holmes in LRSD Central Office, forwarded to Superintendent Mike Poore 8/17/19
Ms. Hatton also confirms what I heard previously from other sources: That Rhonda Hall was waiting at home with her family and friends when her husband returned from the day care that day. In front of these witnesses, multiple sources confirm Rhonda Hall hit her husband in the face with a handgun.
Nigel Hall fired Tiffany Hatton immediately. He didn’t press charges against his wife, but Tiffany Hatton did. The Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney, Larry Jegley, issued a “cease and desist” letter from his office, recommending that Rhonda and Tiffany should have no further contact.
When Rhonda Hall contacted Tiffany Hatton again, in violation of Mr. Jegley’s “cease and desist” letter, Ms. Hatton filed a police report and affidavit with the Lonoke Police.
When Rhonda Hall persisted, Ms. Hatton contacted the Lonoke Police a second time and the Court Clerk her that Rhonda Hall already had an active warrant for harassing communications and terroristic threatening (filed March 6, 2017.)
Throughout the process of filing police reports and affidavits with law enforcement officials, Tiffany Hatton also reported Rhonda Hall’s harassment, violence, and unprofessional conduct to Assistant Superintendent Daniel Whitehorn and LRSD central office Administrative Assistant Joyce Holmes, but without an adequate response from LRSD.
In In 2016-17, LRSD district administrators had the opportunity to hold Rhonda Hall accountable to the terms of their Employee Handbook: “No employee may be involved in an illegal activity that brings into question their suitability as an employee of the Little Rock School District.”
Although LRSD has a history of terminating teachers for even being accused of a misdemeanor like marijuana possession (as per its employee handbook) neither Superintendent Mike Poore nor Education Commissioner Johnny Key (LRSD’s one-man “school board” since state takeover) bothered to open an investigation into Rhonda Hall’s alleged violence and harassment toward her husband and his secretary.
Because no district-level administrator held Rhonda Hall accountable for her violence three years ago, LRSD left the door open for her to assault middle school students this past January.
Even in January, when Rhonda Hall proactively contacted Deputy Superintendent Marvin Burton to let him know she had been involved in a physical altercation with a student, no LRSD district administrator pulled the surveillance footage. Again, LRSD did not investigate.
Finally, in August, LRPD and the Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney (whose office had issued the original “cease and desist” letter to Rhonda Hall back in 2016) were pressured into charging Rhonda Hall with assault. However, they balked at charging her with battery or child maltreatment — and they never served the active warrant from the Lonoke District Court on her either.
As Tiffany Hatton asked me, “I wonder why [LRPD] haven’t picked up the warrant that I had on her once they did the investigation on her. That affidavit should have picked up soon as they ran her name.”
Honestly, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) should have picked up Rhonda Hall’s active warrant from Lonoke when it ran her most recent FBI/child maltreatment/criminal background check on June 20 — the day after surveillance video of Ms. Hall punching a child hit the news.
By the time I published the surveillance footage on June 19, I had already been in contact with LRSD Superintendent Mike Poore about the video for six days. Nevertheless, Poore didn’t report suspected child maltreatment to the State Police hotline — so Rhonda Hall still managed to pass all of her required background checks to renew her license on June 20.
Not even published video evidence of Rhonda Hall punching a student stopped the ADE from licensing her to run a school, or LRSD from continuing to pay her salary.
There are so many powerful people who could have stopped Rhonda Hall before she turned her violence against children. Why didn’t anybody intervene?
It seems that Rhonda Hall, like her friend Freddie Fields (who — like Nigel Hall — operates day care centers with taxpayer money) is above the law. How is it possible for slumlord Freddie Fields, who ordered LRSD’s Alternative Learning Environment to exit students in legitimate need of the program in order to make room for Rhonda Hall’s wrongfully-accused victim, to continue his bad behavior unchecked?
Honestly, I believe Rhonda Hall and Freddie Fields are being protected by Governor Asa Hutchinson himself.
Think about it: Asa Hutchinson wants to be remembered for cutting taxes. However, he doesn’t want to be widely hated for cutting services at the same time. The most elegant solution would be to suck as much federal money into Arkansas as possible, thereby alleviating the need for revenues from state taxes.
However, to get those sweet federal tax dollars flowing, several Arkansans (including Tonique Hatton, Tiffany Hatton’s sister who worked at Asa Hutchinson’s Department of Human Services) felt they had to commit wire fraud on Asa’s watch. The conspirators inflated their child feeding numbers so that they could bill the US Department of Agriculture for more money than they were actually spending to feed poor children in Little Rock.
This is exactly the same scheme that appears to be going on with federal grant money at Rhonda Hall’s school and at St. Mark Baptist Church, where Rhonda and Freddie both attend services. Nevertheless, no Arkansas law enforcement agency (nor the Arkansas Department of Education) is intervening to stop the apparent fraud.
Asa Hutchinson controls the Arkansas Department of Education. His Republican Party controls Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. These are the two top Arkansans who have an obligation to act. However, they continue to look away.
When powerful political leaders protect “white collar” criminals, this is an example of what sociologists call “elite deviance.” David Simon, in his book Elite Deviance, defines “elite deviance” as:
The actions committed by elites and/or the organizations they head that lead to physical, financial, or moral harm; these acts include economic domination, government control, and denial of basic human rights in order to experience personal or organizational gain in profits or power.
(Simon 1999)
I guess, this Halloween, we’ll finally get some of that “elite deviance” in front of a judge. Is anybody else picturing Dr. Frank-N-Furter strutting into court?
I’ll bring the toast.
You hit it on the nail with Governor Hutchinson. This is the same scheme going on with the current Medicaid restructuring. His buddies in the managed health care business are making huge profits while people with disabilities are having life long services disrupted. They are destroying our social and health services as well.