BRINKLEY, Ark. (AP) - Former Arkansas congressman Tommy Robinson and one of his sons face misdemeanor charges stemming from an altercation with one of the creditors who forced the elder Robinson into involuntary bankruptcy.
Robinson, 64, and son Greg Robinson, 38, were served with warrants after they turned themselves in at the Brinkley police station Friday. They were then released.
Tommy Robinson, who represented the 2nd District in central Arkansas when he was in Congress, was charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct. Greg Robinson was charged with third-degree battery and disorderly conduct.
The charges were lodged after Bill Thompson, 58, of Cabot swore out an affidavit accusing the two of attacking him Tuesday night at Gene's BBQ and Family Restaurant. The elder Robinson said as he left the police station Friday that he and his son were provoked.
"I'm surprised I'm the first one (to hit Thompson)," said Robinson, who also was sheriff of Pulaski County. "I mean, I'm a nonviolent guy, but you push me far enough and that's what happened."
Thompson's affidavit said the former congressman and both his sons approached Thompson at the restaurant and challenged him to fight outside. Thompson said that, when he declined, he was hit repeatedly in the head and neck.
After the fracas, he said, "I was bleeding from the head."
A police report said officers called to the scene found Thompson had cuts on his forehead and his left hand.
Thompson, Boyd Rothwell of Little Rock and Wildlife Farms II LLC - now known as Mallard Pointe Lodge and Reserve LLC - filed involuntary bankruptcy petitions against Robinson and his wife, Carolyn, in March 2005. The three creditors listed claims totaling $179,588 against Tommy Robinson, a former partner in Wildlife Farms II, and claims totaling $140,442 against his wife.
A federal bankruptcy judge ruled in September that the Robinsons were bankrupt, and the judge appointed a trustee to liquidate their assets and distribute the proceeds to their creditors.
Thompson also filed a motion with bankruptcy court Wednesday, seeking an order holding the elder Robinson in contempt because of the altercation. The motion accuses Robinson of using his sons as "henchmen" to "harass, intimidate and coerce (Thompson) from further participation in these bankruptcy proceedings." A hearing on the request has been set for July 26 at Little Rock.
In February 2004, Robinson named Rothwell, Thompson and 15 others as defendants in a lawsuit in which he claimed they had conspired to force him into insolvency. That suit was eventually dismissed by a federal judge.
Robinson was elected to Congress in 1984 as a Democrat. He switched parties to run for governor as a Republican in 1990, losing to Sheffield Nelson in the Republican primary. Nelson eventually was defeated by then-Gov. Bill Clinton.
Before his election to Congress, Robinson attracted statewide attention as Pulaski County sheriff, once chaining convicted prisoners to a fence at a prison unit in Pine Bluff. Robinson said that his jail had no room for them and that the state prison system refused to accept them.
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