Today In Oklahoma

Pawnee County Sheriff Roger Lee Price has been busted on allegations of stealing a car-hauling trailer and of driving two vehicles that were seized in drug arrests and which should have been held as evidence.

Price is charged with three felony counts, one count of grand larceny and two counts of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

The trailer theft and one unauthorized use count are the result of allegations from April 3rd when Price is alleged to have used a seized pickup truck to tow the trailer. The second unauthorized use count involves allegations Price drove another pickup which had been seized and stored on his property.

When Price was stopped with the trailer, he told officers that he was asked by Don Hubbard, a former Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper, to repossess the trailer, because the owner owed Hubbard money.

Hubbard, who worked with Price as a trooper and had known him for over 20 years, reportedly denied he had seen or even talked to Price and did not ask him to retrieve the trailer.

Court documents indicate that Price later returned the trailer to the owner.

Sheriff Price has reportedly indicated that he was “set up”.

Price was charged, arraigned and released on personal recognizance Wednesday.

Read it at:

Pawnee County Sheriff Charged With Three Felonies

Pawnee County sheriff charged with 3 felonies

Online Court Records (STATE OF OKLAHOMA vs. PRICE, ROGER LEE)

Yesterday, Jesse Andrew Thornhill, 28, of Tulsa, was booked into the Tulsa jail on a charge of assault with a dangerous weapon.

Thornhill’s arrest by Tulsa Police came as the result of a report of a disturbance between Thornhill and a neighbor, who is reportedly also his landlord.

It is alleged that Mr. Thornhill (shown above) tried to run over his landlord with a car.

According to the landlord, Thornhill attempted to hit her with his vehicle in the street, but missed when she jumped out of the way

Thornhill was released from jail on $10,000 bond.

Read it at Tulsa man arrested after reportedly trying to run over landlord and try to remember if you ever had a neighbor like Mr. Thornhill…

Whether by intent or simply failing to think things through, the Tulsa City Council in its war of words with Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett has managed to paint itself into a corner.

First, the City Council spends $6,000 to fund an investigation into allegations that the Mayor and his Chief of Staff Terry Simonson lied to the Council.

Next, the Council receives the report from its paid investigator and announces that it will turn the report over to the City Attorney’s office to determine if misdemeanor charges are justified against Bartlett, Simonson or both.

In spite of announcing it intended to turn its report over to the City Attorney’s office for possible prosecution, the Council decides instead to ask the City Attorney to recuse the office from deciding on whether charges are justified against the Mayor and his Chief of Staff.

It turns out that the office of the City Attorney and therefore the city prosecutor is under the control of the office of the Mayor and evidently the Councilors did not place a lot of faith in such a scenario.

Last week, eight of Tulsa’s nine councilors urged City Attorney Deirdre Dexter to withdraw her office from reviewing the case and sure enough she granted their request.

With Dexter’s bowing out of the case, the Tulsa City Council is left with no one to decide if charges are justified, let alone to prosecute any charges if such were deemed justifiable.

Now, Tulsa’s City Council is going to hold a special meeting at which it will try to determine whether it has the legal authority to appoint an outside prosecutor, a scenario not addressed in the city’s charter.

Oh well, there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this fiasco.

Be careful of what you ask for and don’t paint yourself into a corner.

Read the latest on the fiasco at Council eyes outside prosecutor…

Last weekend there was some big’uns in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma as the 11th annual Okie Noodling Tournament was held on Saturday.

Pro-noodler Scooter Bivins came in with the biggest big’un of tournament with his 59-pound catch.

And if her report in The Oklahoman is any indication, Carrie Coppernoll was so stricken with the event that next year she just may be a participant by showing some big’uns of her own.

Which ought to prove real interesting for the folks in Pauls Valley.

Read it at Noodlers deliver the ‘big catch’ in Pauls Valley

Okay, let’s consider a hypothetical criminal case.

In this hypothetical scenario, a grown man allegedly sexually assaults a 14-year-old girl by cramming his hand into her pants. This after she refused his request that she play “strip pool”.

In our hypothetical scenario, the guy gets arrested and charged with lewd acts with a child under 16, a felony offense which carries with it upon conviction a prison term of from three to twenty years.

Now, lets say that the accused denies the charge, saying that the alleged victim tried to kiss him while they were playing pool and he refused her advances.

There are no witnesses to the alleged crime, other than the man and the teen. This is a classic “she said, he said case”.

Okay, so let’s say that the the accused pleads “no contest” to the charge.

If you were the judge, what kind of sentence would you feel serves justice?

Remember, this is a felony count with a recommended sentencing range of from three to twenty years.

In real life, not a hypothetical case, his honor Ronald G. Franklin, District Judge for Kingfisher County, Oklahoma figures justice is served by a five year suspended sentence and a couple hundred dollars in fees to the state and apparently no requirement that the guilty man register as a sex offender.

Such was the case of former Kingfisher County deputy Shawn Theo Thomsen, 43, who pleaded no contest last Thursday to the felony charge in Judge Franklin’s court room and basically walked away “scott free”.

There you have it, that which they call justice in Kingfisher County, Oklahoma.

And as Paul Harvey used to say, now YOU know the test of the story…

Links:

Former deputy pleads no contest to lewd acts charge

Ex-Kingfisher County deputy pleads no contest to lewd acts charge

Court Records (State of Oklahoma v. Shawn Theo Thomsen)

Some folks are not cut out for a life of crime.

Such is the case of a recent would be SUV thief in Tulsa.

On Sunday, the man steals an SUV, bad move to start with.

The owner of the stolen vehicle gives chase in another vehicle and catches up with the would be SUV thief at the Memorial exit of I-244.

The would be SUV thief crashes the stolen vehicle, jumps out, takes off running up the on ramp and immediately gets hit by an on coming vehicle.

At this point, various physical laws come into play and the would be SUV thief was thrown about 30-40 feet and landed on his head when the law of gravity took charge.

Tulsa cops described the man’s condition as “very critical” and were not sure whether he would survive.

Proving once again that some folks are not cut out for a life of crime and that Darwin was right about the survival of the fittest.

Links:

Car hits man ditching stolen SUV

Man Accused Of Stealing Car Hit By Vehicle On Tulsa Street