Decades of concurrent charges means a Fort Smith woman came out of Sebastian County Circuit Court Friday morning facing ten years in prison with five years suspended after a plea deal on five felony charges and five other felony failure to appear counts.
Jodi Dawn Cowles, who has been committing felonies on a regular basis since 2016, was also given an additional four years on a Felony Petition to revoke, but that sentence was wrapped up in the concurrent status of the rest of her charges,. Her long and storied criminal career also brought a habitual offender tag in to play in the court proceedings Friday morning.
An arrest back in June on a Possession of Controlled Substance Schedule I/II charge, two felony and one misdemeanor Failure to Appear counts, Absconding and a Parole Violation landed Cowles in the Sebastian County Adult Detention Center on a no-bond hold and she has remained behind bars since she was incarcerated.
That arrest triggered revocation of parole on charges dating all the way back to 2019.
On Friday, she was given ten years with five suspended on each felony, including old convictions for Maintaining a Drug Premises, Possession of a Controlled Substance and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.
Technically, Cowles still has about a year and a half left on a five years supervised probation gift she received out of Pulaski County on drug charges, and after she moved to Sebastian County she was arrested four other times on drug-related and failure to appear charges since 2019. All those cases were adjudicated on Friday.
Cowles was given credit for jail time served and will receive a six month drivers license suspension with a permit upon her release.
