A Van Buren man already facing ten years in Arkansas Department of Corrections on forgery charges from a 2022 conviction saw more time added to his prison term in a court session Wednesday morning in Sebastian County Circuit Court.
Kevin Leroy Gilliam, 45, received a 30-year sentence with decades of additional years suspended on drug and firearm related charges after a negotiated plea deal during s court inquiry.
Gilliams last recorded arrest in Sebastian County was back on April 18, 2022, when he was picked up on a parole violation and to assist an outside agency for a misdemeanor. That parole violation was dropped on April 25th and he was released from jail at that time.
In the court session on Wednesday, Gilliam was sentenced to 30 years with 10-year suspended on a "Y" felony conviction, 20 years with 10 years suspended for delivery of methamphetamine, and 10 years with an additional 10 years suspended on the firearms violation. He was convicted for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Earlier, Gilliam was sentenced to 120 months in prison by Judge Candice Settle in Crawford County on two counts of forgery stemming from a February 3, 2020 arrest. He entered into a plea agreement on September 27, 2022 on and received 120 months in prison with an additional 120 months suspended.
He has remained in the Crawford County detention center since that time awaiting transfer to the Arkansas Department of Corrections.
Gilliam has served previous prison stretches for the manufacture, delivery. or possession of controlled substances, possession of firearms by certain persons, domestic battery in the third degree, and theft by receiving. Two of those crimes stretch all the way back to 2009. The court on Wedesfday set his sentences to run concurrently with each other and with his Crawford County sentence, which extended the amount of time he'll spend in prison befe becoming eligible for parole.
