Hot Spring County Sheriff Scott Finkbeiner has been arrested again and is being held in Saline County, according to an inmate roster listing on May 2.
EL DORADO, Ark. — (Eds. note: The attached video is from February 2025.)
Hot Spring County Sheriff Scott Finkbeiner has been arrested again and is being held in Saline County, according to an inmate roster listing on May 2.
According to the listing, authorities with the Little Rock FBI booked Finkbeiner on Friday around 12:34 p.m. Currently his charge is listed as “hold for US Marshall”
His most recent arrest comes after pled guilty back in February to ‘Engaging in a Scheme to Conceal a Material Fact from a Governmental Agency.’
He was arrested on Feb. 7 by federal agents, originally facing six federal charges, but by the terms of the plea deal he accepted, the other five charges will be dropped in exchange for his guilty plea.
Following his hearing in February, Finkbeiner was sent back to the Saline County Detention Center to be processed and released as he awaited sentencing, which was expected to happen within six months from that date.
According to court documents, the charge Finkbeiner pled guilty to stems from an incident that took place beginning in May of 2023, when the FBI began to investigate a man named Kenneth Wayne Smith for illegal narcotics activity.
When the FBI purchased meth from Smith during a sting operation, Finkbeiner was there.
When FBI agents asked Finkbeiner about Smith, he told them that Smith was a “confidential informant” for the county sheriff’s department, and had helped them arrest at least one local meth dealer.
However, Smith later disputed this in an interview, and multiple Hot Spring County deputies interviewed by the FBI also said Smith was never an informant for them, which led to the charge against Finkbeiner for lying to the FBI.
Although Finkbeiner was still serving as the sheriff for Hot Spring County, a federal judge in Dec. 2023 removed his law enforcement duties.
The charge Finkbeiner pled guilty to comes with an up to five-year prison sentence and a fine of up to $250,000.
We will update this article with more information as it becomes available.
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