(Update: On Friday, June 20, organizers behind the Wagoner County petition referenced below announced the successful submission of 3,730 valid signatures, which was 569 signatures shy of the signature threshold. Similarly, in May, organizers behind the Garfield County petition fell short of their goal, submitting fewer than 300 valid signatures. However, on July 2, a Kingfisher County judge affirmed a successful petition and ordered a grand jury there to be impaneled. The article below remains in its original form.)
A grand jury petition seeking to charge and remove Wagoner County District Attorney Jack Thorp and Wagoner County Sheriff Chris Elliott was approved for circulation by the presiding district court judge April 29. The entering of the order gave petitioners 45 days to collect 4,299 signatures from eligible county voters to empanel a grand jury to investigate the petition’s allegations.
Meanwhile, a petition to launch a grand jury in Kingfisher County was also approved May 12 for a 45-day signature window. That petition seeks the criminal prosecution of Benjamin Millis, who fired his pistol into a crowd of people at a party on Mother’s Day in 2020, although he claims he did so in self-defense. It needs 781 valid signatures from registered county voters.
District Judge Michael Hogan reviewed the Wagoner County petition and found it “contains reasonably specific identifications of areas to be inquired into and sufficient general allegations to warrant a finding that such inquiry may lead to information which, if true, would warrant a true bill of indictment or action for removal.”
Grand jury petition allegations have not been proven in a court of law when they are initially filed, and state law explicitly authorizes libel liability for allegations made “with malice and with an ulterior or illicit purpose.”
Thorp posted a statement on Twitter denying the petition’s allegations against him while declining to comment on the allegations against Elliott, except to note that as district attorney he has a duty to legally represent county officials like the sheriff.
“As it relates to the allegations made against myself — in the strongest possible terms I want to state that I categorically deny the claims made in the filing,” Thorp wrote. “Furthermore, should it become necessary, I will ultimately present significant proof of political and evil motive in presenting these allegations (against myself), and will ultimately seek any potential remedy pursuant to [Title 38, Section 108].”
The petitioners’ decision to include Thorp complicates the grand jury petition. Normally, if the petition gained enough valid signatures to be successful, the district attorney would lead the grand jury investigation. But since the district attorney’s office is implicated in the petition, the duty to lead the investigation would go to Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office, according to Title 19, Section 215.13.
The petition was filed by Wagoner County Citizens Against Corruption, an LLC registered to a Broken Arrow accountant named Brent Watson. The petition does not appear to be Watson’s first foray into county politics, with reporting from February 2024 indicating he organized a protest against proposed county tax increases where he “pretended to dump [tea] into the Arkansas River.” Watson donated $1,900 to the 2024 campaign of Rep. Gabe Woolley (R-Broken Arrow), and the experience of Lisa Woolley — Gabe’s mother — in the Wagoner County Detention Facility is cited in the petition.
Wagoner County petition makes allegations on jail deaths, records destruction
The Wagoner County petition is largely focused on Elliott with mention of Thorp mostly limited to criticism of him for ignoring Elliott’s alleged conduct.
The first allegation raised is that Elliott “failed to staff the Wagoner County Detention Facility with qualified medical personnel.” The petition alleges that Elliot hired Haley Lonshore, a medical assistant, as the “jail health administrator” and that Longshore was unqualified because she could not “diagnose medical conditions,” “dispense prescription medication,” or “provide medical training for the other detention officers.”
Angela Liggans, who had type one diabetes, was booked into the Wagoner County jail May 18, 2021, and she died June 2 in an isolation cell, according to the petition. After she was booked into the jail, staff allegedly failed to provide her access to her insulin causing her to “experience episodes of psychosis,” and she was placed “in isolation.” After not being administered insulin for more than four days, Liggans died from diabetic ketoacidosis, according to the petition. After her death, Elliot told reporters she suffered a “medical episode.”
In January, with her mother represented by attorney Dan Smolen, Wagoner County reached a $13.5 million settlement to end a lawsuit over Liggans death. Voters approved a sales tax increase to cover the settlement in February.
The second allegation raised in the petition is that Elliott “reward[ed] the unlawful conduct of his deputies” after the death of Jeffrey Krueger. In July 2019, Deputy Kaleb Phillips pulled over Krueger for speeding and failure to stay in his lane. Phillips and another officer, Deputy Nicholas Orr, then “forcibly removed” Krueger from his vehicle, tased him, smashed his head into the pavement, handcuffed his hands and legs, and then two other officers who arrived to assist “sat on his back and legs,” according to the petition.
“After a period of time it became evident that Jeffrey Krueger had stopped breathing,” the petition alleges. “It was forensically determined that Jeffrey Krueger died from ‘positional asphyxia’ as a consequence of his restraint.”
The same day Krueger died, Elliott submitted a written nomination for Phillips and Orr for a “law enforcement medal of valor.” The petition alleges Elliott’s actions violated department policy and Oklahoma law.
The third allegation raised is that Elliott assaulted and battered Elizabeth Rodriguez in the county jail. On Dec. 1, 2019, Rodriguez was detained at the county jail on first-degree murder charges when Elliott’s wife, Judy Elliott, visited the facility. Judy Elliot was allegedly in the jail’s common area talking with Rodriguez when the two began to argue. When the sheriff noticed the argument, he intervened and “violently grabbed Elizabeth Rodriguez by the hair on her head and dragged her across the common area of the jail to a jail cell,” the petition alleges.
The petition claims that Elliott granting his wife access to the jail violates state law and “amounted to acts of corruption in office.”
Finally, the petition also alleges that on March 12, 2024, Chris Elliott, Undersheriff Mark Secrist, Judy Elliott and Kerry Scott entered the Emergency 911 Office for Wagoner County after Judy Elliott was placed on leave by a unanimous vote of the Board of County Commissioners. While there, all the files on Judy Elliott’s computer were allegedly deleted, and the petition alleges that amounts to “willful maladministration and corruption in office.”
Thorp noted in his statement that Rodriguez never filed a police report regarding the alleged incident and that a civil lawsuit she brought was dismissed. He also said the Liggans and Krueger cases were investigate by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation before “criminal charges were declined.”
On May 9, Thorp filed a motion to quash the petition, arguing that it “fails to allege sufficient facts on which to seek [my removal].” Thorp also argued that a DA cannot be removed for exercising “prosecutorial discretion” and that a corporation is ineligible to file a petition seeking a grand jury’s empanelment. His motion is pending.
Wagoner County politics complicated by personal fights
Last year, Elliott and the board of county commissioners clashed over proposals to raise taxes and create a jail trust that ultimately failed. This year, voters approved the tax increase to cover the $13 million legal settlement regarding Liggans’ death at the jail. Elliott also publicly clashed with the board after his wife was placed on administrative leave before retiring last year, but he won reelection to another four-year term.
While Elliott has maintained enough popularity to keep his office, he has vocal critics in the county — most notably the Woolley family. Freshman Rep. Gabe Woolley is a member of the family, and he participated in the documentary Saving Clayton about the ongoing custody battle over Clayton Woolley. After one of the Woolley’s grandchildren died of sudden infant death syndrome, Elliott arrested Lisa and Bill Woolley, and Thorp filed charges for the death and sexual abuse of the child. The charges were later dropped, but the Woolley’s other grandson, Clayton, was never returned to the family.
The family has been extremely critical of Elliott’s initial refusal to recognize sudden infant death syndrome as real.
“Fourteen-month-old babies just don’t die,” Elliott told News on 6 in a 2018 interview. “There is a reason why they die. We’re operating under the pretenses right now that somebody inside that home murdered that child.”
Elliott did not respond to a call seeking comment on the grand jury petition late Friday.
Kingfisher County petitioners seek charges for 2020 shooting
Meanwhile, in Kingfisher County, James Everett Jones and Lindsey Jones submitted a petition May 9 to empanel a grand jury to investigate Benjamin Millis, whom they say shot a man at a birthday party in 2020.
“Law enforcement in Kingfisher County did not alert the [Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation] that there had been a homicide committed in Kingfisher County and the district attorney declined to prosecute Mr. Millis,” they wrote in their petiton.
The petitions allege that they were among a group of parents and kids who had gathered on Mothers’ Day in 2020 at the home of Trevor Gritz outside of Hennessey for a birthday party. While gathered on the front lawn of the house, Millis drove his truck “at a high rate of speed” past the house on the gravel road, something he had done on multiple occasions, according to the petition.
“Mr. Gritz alone may have thrown a beer bottle or can in the direction of the vehicle driven by Benjamin Millis, as a way to reprove Millis for diriving by his home at night at a high rate of speed, kicking up rocks and dust, lessening visibility and creating a hazard of someone being struck by a rock while several young children were in the front yard of the residence playing,” the petitioners wrote. “Millis was not injured, and his property was not damaged by the object allegedly thrown in his direction.”
After that, Millis stopped his truck — in which his friend, ex wife and their daughter were riding — and backed it up back to the front of Gritz’s property.
According to the petition, a discussion ensued between the adults at the party and Millis in his truck. At some point, Millis pulled out a pistol and shot multiple rounds into the crowd, killing Christopher Robinson, one of the attendees. Robinson’s wife and children were also at the party.
“Immediately after the shots were fired, occupants of the vehicle stated that they needed to flee the scene,” the petitioners wrote. “One occupant, believed to be the one videoing the incident, stated ‘they got kids, they’re going in to get a gun, we need to go.’ Millis and the other occupants of the vehicle then fled the scene.”
The petitioners also said Millis attempted to say he had fired the shots in self-defense in the immediate aftermath of the incident, a claim they called “erroneous.” They wrote:
Mr. Millis made the following conscious decisions before shooting and killing Mr. Robinson. First, he made the decision to back up his vehicle to Mr. Gritz’s residence when he could have continued north, and the shooting would not have occured. He did so precisely so that he could threaten, injure or kill persons at the party. Second, Mr. Millis unsheathed his silenced pistol. thir, upon information and belief, mr. Millis instructed Mr. Porter to record the incident. Fourth, Mr. Millis unlocked the driver’s side door and either Millis or Porter unlocked the back left side passenger door. Upon information and belief, this was an attempt to ‘bait’ a party goer to try to open the door so he could claim self-defense for the shooting. Fifth, Mr. Millis rolled down his window and likely also the back left passenger window. Sixth, Mr. Millis shot directly into the crowd of party goers, striking and killing Mr. Robinson, who was not attempting to gain access to the inside of Mr. Millis’ vehicle. Given these fact, it was error for officials in power to make a decision not to prosecute Mr. Millis, for whatever reason. Mr. Millis should be afforded the same opportunity as any criminal defendant to prove his immunity from prosectuion by asserting it after indictment under the Oklahoma Stand Your Ground Law, [Title 21, Section 1289.25].
The incident spawned numerous civil lawsuits and criminal cases, but no charges were ever brought against Millis. Three civil cases involving the incident were settled:
- CJ-2021-47 (Kingfisher County),
- CJ-2021-28 (Kingfisher County), and
- CJ-2021-130 (Garfield County).
On March 26, 2024, Gritz pleaded no contest to a felony count of “throw or drop object on motor vehicle.” He was given a two-year deferred sentence and a $500 fine.
The Kingfisher County petitioners have 45 days from May 12 to gather enough signatures to empanel the jury. According to a 2024 Oklahoma Supreme Court opinion, the number of signatures required to empanel a jury in a particular county is 16 percent of the number of votes cast in the most recent election for governor. In Kingfisher County, that number would be 781. In Wagoner County, that number is 4,299.
Garfield County grand jury petition faces hearing
Meanwhile, Garfield County residents are waiting to learn whether enough valid signatures have been submitted to empanel a grand jury “to investigate alleged crimes committed against children and their families by employees of Oklahoma state agencies responsible for child protection.”
Filed by Mandy Harvey, the 66-page amended petition seeking the grand jury makes a wide array of allegations against employees of the Department of Human Services and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, as well as two judges, a police officer, two attorneys and two hospitals.
In other filings in the grand jury petition process, Harvey has said the petition aims to investigate abuse at the Robert M. Greer Center. Harvey claims she and other signature collectors faced intimidation while trying to gather the 2,594 signatures necessary to empanel a Garfield County grand jury. In an April 21 motion asking Logan County District Judge Jason Reese to approve the petition regardless of signature counts owing to harassment, Harvey described an altercation at a local bar.
“On April 16, 2025, a significant act of retaliation occurred when Kena Bruno, an individual named in the petition due to her involvement in retaliating against a whistleblower who reported abuse at the Greer Center, seized and burned the petition and siganature sheets in an outdoor burn pit at The Barn,” Harvey wrote. “Volunteers Edie Grizzle and her husband had gathered signatures at this local establishment. Despite Ken Bruno’s false claims that the petition contained the word ‘copy,’ Bruno admitted to law enforcement that she had destroyed the materials. Evidence was collected at the scene, clearly establishing that the petition was unlawfully destroyed.”
Harvey claimed that the Grizzles have faced a veritable low-ton of harassment for supporting the petition.
“Edie Grizzle and her husband, after being harassed by Kena Bruno and her associates, were banned from local bars where they participate in a dart league at the behest of Kena Bruno’s mother, who holds influence over the league,” she wrote. “As a result, these volunteers are now afraid to continue their work, fearing for their personal safety, and their right to petition the government has been severely hindered.”
Reese rejected the motion to approve the petition, but he is set to hold a hearing on the sufficiency of submitted signatures at 10 a.m. Friday, May 30.
