(Editor’s note: The following article outlines allegations of serial sexual misconduct and includes graphic details. It was updated Friday, Aug. 30, to note that formal charges had been filed against Brent McGee.)
Former Wetumka mayor, teacher, coach, business owner and community leader Brent McGee was arrested today after a two-year investigation into allegations that he committed sexual abuse against students during an education career that spanned three decades.
Although charges had yet to be formally filed by the time of this story’s publication, Hughes County District Attorney Erik Johnson said Wednesday that McGee would be facing “multiple counts.” The probable cause affidavit (embedded below) recommended seven counts of sexual battery against a minor and one count of engaging in a pattern of criminal activity. When charges were filed Aug. 27, they included seven counts of child sexual abuse and one count for a pattern of criminal offenses.
“This is the result of a long investigation that is still continuing,” Johnson told NonDoc. “I wish there hadn’t been the publicity about it [recently] because it looks like we did it in response to that. But that’s just the timing.”
McGee becomes the second former Wetumka mayor to be arrested on allegations of child sexual misconduct in less than five years. The man who ousted McGee from office in 2019 was convicted in a child pornography conspiracy in 2022.
The husband of longtime Wetumka Public Schools Superintendent Donna McGee — who retired earlier this year — Brent McGee was booked into jail at 11:54 a.m. in Wewoka. Hughes County contracts with Seminole County for jail services because the subterranean Hughes County Jail was shut down in 2023 owing to health, safety and liability concerns.
McGee, 59, was arrested wearing a “DQ” shirt at the Dairy Queen his family has owned for more than 60 years on the south side of Wetumka. He is being held on a $350,000 bond.
Accused of grooming and sexually abusing teenagers in his care, McGee has faced accusations from at least three former students so far.
Two of those former students — Brandon Rhinehart and Zachary Williams — filed a federal civil lawsuit against Brent McGee, Donna McGee and Wetumka Public Schools on Aug. 2 seeking damages for the abuse they say they endured while residing in the school district and in the McGees’ home.
Now over age 18, the two men say in their lawsuit that they experienced the abuse while they were minor students in the district. The men’s names have been published in the lawsuit and in news reports, and records indicate that Williams publicly confronted Donna McGee during a November 2023 home football game with allegations of abuse by Brent McGee.
The probable cause affidavit filed for McGee’s arrest Wednesday includes information from two victims identified as “B.R.” and “Z.W.”
Affidavit: McGee molested boys with unstable home lives
The probable cause affidavit against Brent McGee relies primarily on information the two former Wetumka students gave to Douglas Parker, an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office.
The affidavit describes a heartbreaking scenario where two boys with unstable home conditions accepted hospitality from and living arrangements with the McGees, a family largely regarded as one of the most influential in Wetumka.
While living in the McGees’ home on the northeast edge of Wetumka, the former students say McGee molested them numerous times. One of the former students said the abuse occurred at the McGees’ home, as well as on trips they would take in a WPS vehicle to Sam’s Club in Tulsa and Oklahoma City to procure items for school concession stands and McGee’s Dairy Queen.
“Brent McGee would sometimes use one hand and sometimes use two hands and would go through the top of his boxer shorts, in the front. [The victim said] Brent McGee would use his hand/hands to touch his penis and would try to ‘ejaculate’ him or was ‘ejaculating’ him,” Parker wrote. “Brent McGee would talk to him about masturbation and would joke around, asking him if they were going to jack off tonight.”
Parker wrote that the student lived in a bedroom in the middle of the home, with Brent McGee in one bedroom on one side of the house and Donna McGee in a bedroom on the other side of the house.
“[The victim] disclosed that at one point he moved out of [the McGees’] residence but later moved back into [the McGee’s] residence because he didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Parker wrote. “[He] disclosed that once he moved back into [McGee’s] residence, the sexual abuse started back up and continued in the same manner as previously mentioned.”
Parker also described the other student’s allegations of abuse and his fear that “he would not be believed.” Parker wrote that the student had a public altercation during a Nov. 3, 2023, football game where he “disclosed to a group of people that [McGee] had raped him.” However, Parker wrote that the student did not tell law enforcement about his experiences until he was interviewed by FBI agents five days later.
The two former students make many of the same allegations in their federal lawsuit, and they allege that Donna McGee permitted her husband’s actions and sometimes covered them up as superintendent of Wetumka Public Schools.
“Donna McGee, an educator trained in the prevention of child sexual abuse, knew about Brent McGee’s sexual abuse of plaintiffs and other boys, but she took no action despite having authority to conduct disciplinary measures at the school,” the plaintiffs said in their complaint.
Johnson, the district attorney, declined to say if charges would be coming for Donna McGee.
“Right now we’re focused on Brent McGee,” Johnson said.
The federal lawsuit against the McGees and Wetumka Public Schools and Brent McGee’s arrest came after former Noble Public Schools student Casey Yochum alleged his own abuse at the hands of Brent McGee. Yochum spoke during the public comments section of a State Board of Education meeting Oct. 26.
“I was molested by Brent McGee for years,” Yochum, 49, told the board, which ultimately suspended Brent McGee’s teaching certificate. “He starts grooming these kids at 13, 14 years old.”
Yochum, who recorded a November 2020 phone conversation with McGee in which the former teacher apologized for his actions, is mentioned in the lawsuit but is not a plaintiff.
On Wednesday, Yochum posted Brent McGee’s booking photo on Facebook with the caption, “GOD WIN’S!!!!”
Yochum’s allegations are not referenced in the probable cause affidavit, but they appear to have spurred the initial investigation by the FBI in August 2022.
“The day the FBI came in, he resigned on the spot, so he has not been back in the school district,” Donna McGee told NonDoc after a Wetumka Public Schools Board meeting Nov. 6, 2023.
In August 2022, Brent McGee confirmed to NonDoc that he had resigned from Wetumka Public Schools after the FBI had approached him.
“I had accusations,” McGee said. “I don’t know how much I can talk about this, but I have retired from education, and that’s about all I can say about it.”
At the time, McGee said he believed “someone” was attempting to set him up.
McGee arrested as other former Wetumka mayor still in prison
When he confirmed there had been “accusations” against him in August 2022, Brent McGee attempted to point his finger at the man who had ousted him as mayor of the Wetumka City Council in April 2019.
That man, James Jackson, was sentenced to prison in May 2022 for a child pornography conspiracy with his wife, Rebecca Jackson. While Rebecca Jackson also received a prison sentence, a judge later modified its length at a hearing without notification being made to a documented victim of the Jacksons’ mental, physical and sexual abuse. In May 2023, Rebecca Jackson was released from prison only 258 days into a four-year sentence despite objections from the District Attorney’s Office and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, which said she had lied in her application for sentence modification.
In April 2019, both Jacksons were elected — along with a third person — to the Wetumka City Council, ousting incumbents like McGee and setting the town on course for a bitter political standoff that included the Jacksons’ attempts to disband the police department.
In the election, James Jackson received 172 votes to defeat incumbent Mayor Brent McGee, who received 106 votes. Rebecca Jackson received 175 votes to defeat Robert Jaggars, who died the next year.
During their campaigns, the Jacksons mailed extensive letters to Wetumka residents that included criticism of Brent McGee and allegations of mismanaged municipal resources, including questions about how city electric bills were allegedly being manipulated to the detriment and benefit of various residents.
“If Brent gets re-elected or if we do not win ALL THREE seats, it is very likely that Brent will stay in office until he dies,” James Jackson wrote in one letter. “MAKE NO MISTAKE, to unseat Brent, one must have a firm grasp of all of the issues surrounding this town. They must be cordial enough, professional enough, and likable enough to gather a SIGNIFICANT number of supporters. (…) MANY believe that if we do not win ALL THREE of the seats we are trying for, Brent will run the city council from the shadows like he does everything else in this town. It is my sincere belief that THIS is the time to act.”
After James and Rebecca Jackson were arrested by the FBI and local law enforcement in March 2020, Brent McGee made celebratory Facebook posts sharing press releases and news articles about the Jacksons.
“Shout out to our FBI, Hughes County Sheriff’s Department, and the Wetumka Police Department for getting this piece of work off our streets and out of our community!” McGee wrote April 18, 2020, while sharing an article about charges against James Jackson. “Prayers answered as our little town starts the healing process.”
Now, that process begins anew for the 1,200-person community in Hughes County that celebrates Sucker Day every September to commemorate a “flim-flam man” who bilked residents out of money in anticipation of a circus he never brought to town.
“Prayers for all of the victims,” one woman wrote on Facebook about Brent McGee’s arrest. “I hope justice is served to him and his wife, as well as the people that stood by and watched as it happened.”
View the Brent McGee probable cause affidavit
https://nondoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/DA-2024-0018-Brent-McGee-Arrest-PC-CPC-2024-0006_Redacted.pdf” viewer=”browser”]
