By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — A Saline County business owned by Arkansas Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb and his wife is in foreclosure, court documents show.
The proceeding, first reported today by insidesaline.com, says that as of July 31, Doyle and Barbra Webb, owners of Webb’s House of Flowers in Benton, owed more than $660,000 in principal, interest and late fees to First Security Bank in Benton for the business they purchased in 2006.
The Aug. 5 filing in Saline County Circuit Court seeks immediate possession of the property for sale at a foreclosure sale by the county clerk.
Doyle Webb declined comment Thursday and referred questions to his attorney, Peter Heister, who did not return calls to his office seeking comment.
Webb, a state senator from 1995 to 2003, was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas in December. He previously served as chief of staff for former Lt. Win Rockefeller, who died in 2006. From 1987 to 1992, Webb was a justice of the peace in Saline County.
The foreclosure case was originally assigned to Saline County Circuit Judge Gary Arnold, but he and each of the other three county circuit judges have recused themselves. Arnold has asked the Administrative Office of the Courts to appoint a special judge to hear the case.
In 2001, Webb was reprimanded by the Arkansas Supreme Court Committee on Professional Conduct after the panel found he violated three rules of professional conduct but committed no fraud by accepting about $321,000 as beneficiary of a client’s will.
Webb was accused of having himself written into the will by a lawyer with whom he shared an office, staff and stationary. He had faced sanctions ranging from a letter of caution to disbarment.
The seven-member committee concluded that Webb violated rules dealing with misconduct, misuse of law firm names and letterheads, and actions by an assistant.
Along with the reprimand, he was fined $1,000.
Barbra Webb is a former Saline County prosecutor.
