Former Arkansas deputy sentenced after brutal arrest caught on video

On October 11, 2024By Yukito

(AP) – FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) – A former Arkansas law enforcement officer who pleaded guilty to violating the civil rights of a man he repeatedly punched during a brutal arrest captured on video in 2022 will serve his sentence at a federal prison medical facility.

Court documents show U.S. District Judge Susan O. Hickey on Wednesday sentenced former Crawford County sheriff’s deputy Levi White to 63 months with credit for time served and ordered him committed to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners.

Hickey recommended that White receive medical counseling and treatment while at the facility in Springfield, Missouri, and be sentenced to two years of supervised release.

In April, White pleaded guilty to criminal deprivation of rights in the August 21, 2022 arrest of Randal Worcester outside a convenience store.

White and another former Zackary King deputy were charged last year by federal prosecutors with arrests. A bystander recorded the arrest on a cellphone in the small town of Mulberry, about 140 miles northwest of Little Rock near the Oklahoma border. Video of the arrest was widely shared on the Internet.

The verdict for King, who also pleaded guilty, was scheduled for Thursday.

White’s lawyer did not respond to a message late Wednesday afternoon.

The third officer captured on video, Mulberry Police Officer Thell Riddle, has not been charged in the federal case. King and White were released by the Crawford County sheriff. The video shows King and White punching Worcester while Riddle held him down. White also struck Worcester’s head on the pavement.

Police said Worcester was being questioned about threatening a clerk at a grocery store in the nearby town of Alma when he assaulted one of the deputies and punched him in the head before being arrested. Worcester is scheduled to go to trial in February on arrest charges including resisting arrest and second-degree battery.

Worcester filed a lawsuit in 2022 against three officers, the city of Mulberry and Crawford County over the arrest. However, this case has been suspended until the end of the criminal proceedings related to the arrest.