MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark.—A former managing editor of the Baxter Bulletin daily newspaper entered a no-contest plea Monday to a misdemeanor charge of hindering apprehension or prosecution, and was sentenced to probation.
Kandra Branam, 44—now living in Alamogordo, N.M., as Kandra Wells, after a divorce—was suspended after charges filed last May accused her of sheltering her brother, wanted as a fugitive from Colorado.
After she entered her plea Monday before Baxter County Circuit Judge John Putnam, he pronounced her guilty and sentenced her to 12 months of unsupervised probation.
A felony charge of accomplice to fleeing and another misdemeanor charge of hindering apprehension or prosecution was dismissed in a plea agreement with the prosecutor’s office.
Branam was arrested and charged after her brother, Thomas Wells, 41, led Marion County authorities on a high-speed chase in January 2007.
Authorities found out that Thomas Wells, who had obtained a birth certificate of a deceased Baxter County infant, was living with Branam at her Mountain Home residence, and using the name of the dead child. Wells was wanted in Colorado for failing to report to prison after a theft conviction.
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Information from: The Baxter Bulletin,
