Ends of justice

Arkansas Business, June 16, 2008

Former Little Rock mortgage broker Nelson Miller's sentencing in U.S. District Court, which we told you last week was scheduled for June 26, has been pushed back to July 10.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Bush, who prosecuted Miller, expects to be otherwise occupied next week--with the trial of Kristian D. Nelson.

Nelson--Kristian, not Miller--is a convicted hot-check artist who operated Little Rock businesses called Pinnacle Valley Consulting Inc. and Pinnacle Valley Sports Center Inc. He was indicted, you may recall, in April 2007 on 20 counts of wire fraud associated with about $800,000 invested in a real estate development scheme between late 2004 and December 2006.

He allegedly convinced some 17 investors in California, West Virginia, Arizona, New Jersey and Nebraska that he could help them make a profit by building new houses or rehabilitation and "flipping" existing houses.

Unlike Nelson Miller, Kristian Nelson is already in federal custody. The U.S. Marshal Service dropped him off at the Pulaski County Detention Center on May 14 after he drew another two-count federal indictment for possessing seven firearms. (One count was for being a felon in possession of firearms, the other for violating the terms of his pre-trial release by possessing those firearms.)

Nelson was convicted in Pulaski County Circuit Court of a hot-check charge in 2002 and of filing a false report of a crime in 2003.