FAYETTEVILLE — A federal judge Friday refused early, compassionate release for a drug dealer and methamphetamine cook jailed in the late 1990s.
Dennis Cordes was trying to get his federal prison sentence cut short because of failing health. Cordes filed a motion for compassionate release in federal court in Fayetteville in May. Cordes, now 75, said he has served more than 75% of his sentence and now suffers from a number of medical conditions requiring “chronic care” that have left him confined to a wheelchair.
Cordes said he has accumulated “good time” while in prison that should also be considered. He asked his sentence be reduced to time served. Cordes’ release date is Oct. 24, 2026, federal prison records show.
U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks entered an order Friday denying the motion. Brooks said nothing has materially changed since Cordes’ earlier motion for sentence reduction.
“Mr. Cordes is now two years older, has served two more years of his sentence and is wheelchair bound — whereas previously he walked with a cane and restrictions on standing and lifting,” Brooks wrote. “The court continues to believe that his offense conduct and criminal history are very serious and that his sentence of 372 months is just and fair under the totality of the circumstances.”
Cordes petitioned unsuccessfully for early release in late December 2014 based on new federal sentencing guidelines and prison crowding.
Cordes gained public notoriety for his 1996 escape from the Washington County jail while being held on charges he manufactured methamphetamine. The search for Cordes drew federal agents and police officers from several states.
Police in Northwest Arkansas were very familiar with Cordes. His record of drug and other nonviolent convictions dated to 1974, and he was considered a person of interest in the bombing of a police officer’s pickup outside the Springdale Police Department in the early 1970s, but was never charged in connection with the incident.
In 1995 and 1996, Cordes was one of the first to provide the area drug market with large quantities of home-cooked meth, according to prosecutors.
Cordes and a friend set up a clandestine lab in a rented space at Dunlap’s Fish and RV Park near Siloam Springs. They used a travel trailer stolen from a Springdale business.
The lab contained drug recipes, chemicals, chemistry books and residue from cooking meth. Some chemicals had been bought while others were stolen from a Springdale factory. Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Cromwell said in court agents found enough chemicals in the travel trailer to make at least 2.2 pounds of meth and 17.5 pounds of an especially potent meth derivative known as “cat.”
Cordes pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to two federal charges of attempting to manufacture methamphetamine and methcathinone.
On July 8, 1996, Cordes climbed through a window that separates attorneys from their inmate clients in a visitors’ room at the old Washington County jail on College Avenue. Cordes was awaiting sentencing on the federal drug charges.
Connie M. Lewis, an unlicensed private investigator hired by Cordes’ family to help his defense, used a special wrench to remove the window during an unmonitored visit with Cordes. Lewis pleaded guilty to helping Cordes escape.
Cordes was captured one week later sleeping in the back of a pickup 30 miles outside Tulsa, Okla. He was found guilty of escape by a federal jury in September 1996.
Cordes’ mother, Helen Wilkins, and brother Sean Wilkins, both of Pineville, Mo., pleaded guilty to aiding in the jail break. Lewis and the Wilkinses served time in federal prison.
Compassionate release
When jails and prisons let people out before their sentence is complete due to their health or family situations. The U.S. Sentencing Commission approved new guidelines in April expanding the ability of federal inmates to qualify for compassionate release from prison. The new compassionate release guidelines expanded the criteria for what can qualify as extraordinary and compelling reasons to grant compassionate release and gave judges more discretion to determine whether early release is warranted for sick and elderly federal inmates.
Source: U.S. Sentencing Commission
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