A Pineville man who has been arrested for possessing drugs and paraphernalia to ingest drugs five times was in Baxter County Circuit Court Monday.
Twenty-eight-year-old Frank Lee Cox was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to the latest charges against him.
In addition to Baxter County, Cox has been charged in Marion and Izard Counties.
The first cases were opened in 2015 and others followed in 2017, 2019 and again last year.
Cox has spent time in prison on some of the charges.
His latest arrest came March 5 last year when a Mountain Home police officer ran the license number of a vehicle Frank Cox was driving, with Nicole Cox riding in the passenger’s seat.
There is no information in the probable cause affidavit as to the relationship between Frank and Nicole Cox.
The stop was made because the officer found that the registered owner of the vehicle, Nicole Cox, had a suspended driver’s license.
The officer making the stop reported Frank Cox telling him there was a loaded pistol on the back seat. A pistol was found in the vehicle with the serial numbers partially removed. Officers were able to read the numbers and found the pistol had been reported stolen in Texas.
Nicole Cox also admitted to the officer she had “some stuff” in her bra.
She removed three small plastic bags that held slightly more than 24 grams of methamphetamine and a green container holding about 14.9 grams of suspected marijuana.
Nicole Cox told police she had hidden the items for Frank Cox.
A syringe loaded with a clear liquid was also found in the vehicle.
According to electronic court records, Cox missed scheduled court appearances in his 2021 case resulting in a failure to appear warrant being issued.
He was located and booked into the Baxter County jail February 8 and has been an inmate since that time.
Cox once told an officer who had stopped him that he was on parole because he had picked up drug charges, “when he was young and stupid.”
In his latest case, the state dropped charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a defaced firearm and simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms.
The simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms is a Class Y felony, the most serious class of crime in Arkansas not punishable by death.
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