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Baxter County Patrol Vehicle

Tammy Hanson is Transferred to Missouri Authorities to Face Felony Charges

07/09/2010

     A Baxter County Jail Inmate, 43 year old Tammy Christine Hanson, was released from the Detention Center at approximately 10:30 AM today and is being transported to the Lawrence County, Missouri Sheriff's Office to face charges there.

     Tammy Hanson had been serving a sentence of incarceration in the Baxter County Jail following her conviction in Baxter County District Court for the crimes of Cruelty to Animals and Failure to Appear in Court.  Hanson had been a fugitive from justice for several years until she was finally apprehended in the State of Vermont on July 18, 2009.  Hanson has been in custody and incarcerated since then.  She was returned to Arkansas following protracted extradition proceedings, and she was then formally sentenced in District Court by Judge Van Gearhart to serve time in the Baxter County Detention Center as well as being ordered to pay fines, court costs, and restitution. 

     Following her District Court sentencing, Tammy Hanson filed appeals to Circuit Court on her convictions of each charge, but she remained incarcerated.  Those appeals had been pending in Circuit Court awaiting a jury trial.  On Thursday, July 8th, Tammy Hanson accepted a negotiated settlement in her case.  In exchange for Hanson dropping all of her appeals, her case was remanded back to District Court and she was given credit for all the time she has been in custody in both Vermont and Arkansas since July 18, 2009.  This allowed her to be released from the Baxter County Detention Center and be taken to Lawrence County, Missouri to answer her charges there, which are for Failure to Appear in Court for Theft of Animals, which is a felony crime in Missouri.

     Tammy Hanson will remain on supervised probation with the Baxter County District Court until all of her fines, court costs, and restitution are paid and until she has complied with all other provisions of the original District Court orders at the time of her sentencing.

     Although the release of Hanson brings a conclusion to the crimes she was convicted of in Baxter County, a Federal District Court lawsuit that Tammy Hanson filed against the Sheriff and fifteen employees of the Sheriff's Office alleging civil rights violations for cruel and unusual treatment while she was in the Detention Center remains pending and unresolved.

/s/ John F. Montgomery,
Baxter County Sheriff