Former President Allen Meadors, who received a misdemeanor charge for violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act and a $250 fine on Jan. 15, was found out to have viewed enough online pornography, while still university president, to cost the university almost $1,000 in data usage in one week, according to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette article.
Allen Meadors
Meadors used up almost $1,000 in UCA-paid data plans on a university iPad in one week while overseas. While president, Meadors made three trips to China and one to Mexico.
At the time, AT&T data plans cost $199 a month for 200 megabytes. Meadors used fives times that much in one week.
According to the article, UCA Director of Web Development Brent Passmore said “e-mail and ‘regular surfing of the web’ would not consume that many megabytes” and that Meadors’s browsing history included visits to Mr. Skin, a website for celebrity photos and videos.
“And during one of the trips, [Meadors] had used – he was gone for a week and had used four or five data plans,” Passmore said in the article. “And when you’re traveling, I mean, if AT&T thinks you’re going to use 200 [megabytes] a month and you use five of those in a week, the question became, okay, what’s happening, what’s he doing, what’s he, you know, viewing, if you will.”
Passmore declined to comment to The Echo on Feb. 4 regarding the matter.
UCA spokesman Fredricka Sharkey sent an email to the Democrat-Gazette on Feb. 1 that said Meadors is not reimbursing the university.
Meadors was interviewed in March 2012 by Rick Newton, a senior special agent with the state police. Passmore told Newton that he learned of Meadors’ pornography viewing when he began looking into why Meadors was using several international plans’ worth of data.
Meadors was asked about “male techniques of masturbation” Google searches found on his computer, which he justified as something he did while his wife Barbara was in North Carolina.
According to the article, Meadors said: “Probably once or twice a week, I look at some porn.”
Meadors said he likes to check up on a former brunette student who became a porn star and who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, where Meadors used to work. The former brunette student’s stage name is Carmen Hart.
Hart received an Adult Video News award for Best Actress in 2009 and Best Group Sex Scene in a film in 2007.
On Jan. 15, Meadors pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, a Class C misdemeanor.
Originally Meadors was charged for tampering with a public document, a Class A misdemeanor on Aug. 29, 2012. Meadors is the second consecutive UCA president to plead guilty to criminal charges.
He was charged with tampering with a public document for asking Vice President of Finance and Administration Diane Newton to destroy a letter from food vendor Aramark regarding a letter from Aramark saying the food vendor would donate $700,000 to renovate the president’s home in exchange for a contract renewal with UCA.
Meadors resigned from presidency Sept. 2, 2011, after the board of trustees voted to buy out Meadors’ $563,312 contract, $225,325 of which was publicly funded.
Typo on paragraph four. (“weeek”)
Thank you. It has been corrected.
Wow!!! I knew he was dense, but arrogant as well apparently to think that he could get away with this garbage on the public dime. He needs to pay back every penny and ucm should do a do a full investigation from day one to get their money back
What possible reason was there to list the former student from UNC Pembroke’s stage name? Also why do we need to know she won an AVN Award? I know the Echo is already terrible but that’s just trashy. Please stop wasting money and discontinue the publication.
I don’t understand what his former student’s Porn identity or the fact that she won awards for her work has to do with his investigation. Can you elaborate on that?
Did you by any chance get the names of the sites he visited? You know, for reference.
Don’t say you weren’t warned what he was. I am from uncp, and while I couldn’t care less about the trashy woman he was watching, I do know from dealing with him and his wife for 10 years that they are arrogant, trashy, and think you all are stupid. Tis man got away with much more than this at uncp, and we still have idiots here that defend him and think he’s great. Go figure. Anyway, I’m glad you all got rid of him, and yes you should investigate everything from day one!