State politicians ask Clinton to pardon Tyson?s Schaffer

Six members of the Arkansas congressional delegation joined Gov. Mike Huckabee on Sept. 10 in asking President Clinton to pardon an executive of Tyson Foods Inc. in Springdale.

The governmental affairs director for Tyson, Archie Schaffer III, faces sentencing in September for giving illegal gifts to the former secretary of agriculture, Mike Espy.

The state’s two senators and four representatives — half of whom are Democrats, half Republicans — asked Clinton to pardon Schaffer, who was convicted in 1998 of providing a gratuity to Espy in the form of a trip to Arkansas.

The charge carries a mandatory prison sentence, and independent counsel Donald Smaltz has requested Schaffer receive the maximum three years. Sentencing has been scheduled for Sept. 25 in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The delegation confirmed in early September that it sent the letter to Clinton on June 27, the same day that the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s decision to grant Schaffer a new trial. Schaffer attorney, William Jeffress, has argued that new testimony by Espy could clear his client. Espy did not testify at Schaffer’s trial because he also faced charges by Smaltz at the time. Espy was later acquitted.

At a hearing last November, Espy said he wasn’t influenced by Schaffer or anyone else at Tyson Foods.

The letter from the Arkansas delegation calls the appeals court ruling an injustice. Schaffer’s conviction was without merit, the letter said, because Espy was acquitted for accepting a gratuity from Schaffer, but Schaffer’s conviction remained.