ARKADELPHIA, AR - An Arkadelphia man has asked the state Claims Commission to provide him with $1.5 million in compensation for four years he spent in prison because of questionable testimony by a drug task force agent.

The commission heard testimony yesterday in the claim from 44-year-old Rodney Bragg, who was serving a 40-year sentence on a cocaine conviction out of Nevada County when he was released in 2000.

Bragg was convicted in early 1996 of delivery of a controlled substance. He was released in the year 2000 after a federal magistrate ruled that Bragg's conviction was based primarily on questionable testimony from Keith Ray, then an agent with the South-Central Drug Task Force.

Ray testified that he knew Bragg from his work in another case and that he identified a car in that case as belonging to Bragg.

In his ruling, though, the magistrate said Bragg hadn't owned the car at the time the agent said he saw it and that the license plate issued to it -- cited by Ray -- wasn't issued until more than three weeks after Ray said he'd seen it.