Amid the release of new arena renderings for the Oklahoma City Thunder and the launch of new inquiries into whatever was on State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ TV screen, Oklahomans could be excused for missing out on other important statewide happenings.
But big news doesn’t stop other news from unfolding, so the following legal roundup features write ups on important judicial developments from the past couple of weeks.
In Oklahoma County, the criminal embezzlement case against Epic Youth Services co-founders Benjamin Harris and David Chaney continues at its glacial pace. Also in Oklahoma County, the City of OKC has provided an attorney for former Oklahoma City Police Department Officer Joseph Gibson, who is being sued by Lich Vu, the septuagenarian slammed into the ground by Gibson last year.
Elsewhere in the state, several Oklahomans have pleaded guilty to participating in a national catalytic converter theft ring, two cases involving disputes over tribal jurisdiction have new filings, and a former state legislator is asking a court to rule that the charging of tolls on a section of the Will Rogers Turnpike is illegal. Read about all of that, and more, in the sections below.
OK County judge allowed to continue presiding over Epic case
For the fifth time, a motion to force the recusal of Oklahoma County District Court Judge Susan Stallings from the criminal case against Epic Charter School’s former leaders has been denied.
On July 21, Oklahoma County District Court Judge Richard Ogden denied a motion from David Chaney to force the recusal of Stallings. Odgen’s decision came after an hour of arguments from Chaney’s attorney, Gary Wood, and prosecutors in Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office.
Odgen’s denial marks the fifth time a request to recuse Stallings from the case has failed, including two denials from Stallings herself.
Co-defendant Benjamin Harris and his attorney, Joe White, initially asked for Stallings’ recusal in July 2024, arguing her demeanor toward the defendants in the courtroom and the fact she previously worked in the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s Office — which initially charged Harris, Chaney and former CFO Josh Brock — constituted the appearance of impropriety and necessitated her recusal.
Chaney’s attorney subsequently argued that Stallings was improperly represented by Drummond’s prosecutors during Harris’ recusal motion. With the issue heard by Ogden last week, the Oklahoma County presiding judge said he had done his own research into the issue and relied primarily on a Delaware Supreme Court decision that dealt with similar facts.
“The court is persuaded by the Delaware court that this is not a case where there is an appearance of impropriety. Rather, this is a case in which the judge — Stallings — was represented in her official capacity, at a nominal role, there was no financial interest, there was no attorney-client-privileged information passed back or forth,” Ogden said.
After Stallings denied Harris’ motion the first time in July 2024, Harris brought the motion to Ogden as presiding judge of the Oklahoma County District Court, who also denied the motion.
Months later, Harris appealed the decision to the Court of Criminal Appeals, but that motion was denied because it was filed after the deadline for such appeals had passed. White seemed worried about that issue again Monday regarding Chaney’s motion, and he asked for Ogden’s written ruling to be expedited to give Wood the time he needs to file an appeal.
After the Court of Criminal Appeals denied Harris’ motion seeking Stallings’ recusal, Chaney asked Stallings to recuse, which she also denied. The July 21 hearing was the first step for Wood and Chaney to try to reverse her ruling.
But after Ogden’s denial of the motion, Wood declined to say explicitly that his client would appeal Ogden’s decision as Harris and White had attempted to do previously.
“Possibly,” Wood said of whether he and Chaney might appeal to the state’s top criminal court.
The question of Stallings’ recusal has delayed proceedings of the case for about a year already. The first recusal motion was filed as Stallings presided over another motion filed by Brock, who is seeking the recusal of Wood from representing Chaney. The former CFO for Epic, Brock testified in March 2024 during a preliminary hearing — which remains incomplete — that he had reached a plea deal with prosecutors to testify against his co-defendants in exchange for a lighter sentence.
Brock argues that Wood had previously represented him while he was Epic’s CFO, so he says allowing Wood to cross examine him would constitute a conflict of interest. Once the question of Stallings’ recusal is settled, the parties ideally will litigate the question of Wood’s recusal. The preliminary hearing has not concluded, and Brock has yet to be cross examined by Wood. Before that can happen, Stallings — or another judge, if she eventually recuses — must rule on whether Wood should be recused as Chaney’s attorney.
After that issue is settled, the preliminary hearing that has been on hold since March 2024 could be allowed to continue. Then, after the preliminary hearing concludes, a judge will determine if enough evidence exists for the case to continue on to trial. If a judge makes that determination, discovery would begin and the case could proceed to trial if plea agreements are not struck with Harris and Chaney.
OKC City Council approves attorney for officer in lawsuit
The OKC City Council on July 15 approved by a 7-2 margin the hiring of an attorney on behalf of former OKCPD officer Joseph Gibson. In October 2024, Gibson was involved in an incident with OKC resident Lich Vu, whom he slammed violently to the ground after Vu tapped his chest during the discussion of wreck-related traffic violations. Vu, who was 71 years old at the time of the incident, sustained serious injuries, including a brain bleed and the fracture of an orbital bone.
Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna filed a charge of aggravated assault and battery against Gibson in December 2024, but Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is running for governor with the endorsement of Oklahoma’s fraternal order of police — took over the criminal case three weeks later and dismissed the charge against Gibson, saying “this unfortunate incident never would have occurred if Mr. Vu had kept his hands to himself.”
Vu filed a lawsuit in federal court in April naming Gibson, the City of OKC and Drummond as defendants.
Municipal Counselor Kenneth Jordan said the city’s FOP agreement and state law requires the City of OKC to provide a defense for an officer, even if they are not currently employed by the department. Gibson resigned from OKCPD in March.
“We don’t have the same discretion we would normally have in making decisions,” Jordan said. “There are actually two things that require us to provide defense for police officers who are sued individually in lawsuits for acts they commit while they are a police officer. We have the FOP collective bargaining agreement, whereby we are bound to provide defense for an officer suit individually if he is acting in the capacity of a police officer. That is very broad. And then we have the state law that says if they are acting in good faith during the course of their employment that we have to provide them with defense. That’s why we have really no discretion to provide defense here.”
Asked by Ward 7 Councilman Camal Pennington if Gibson could sue the city for not providing a defense, Jordan said that would be the case.
“Probably what the officer would do is file a grievance that we violated the collective bargaining agreement, and that would go to an arbitrator, and his decision would almost certainly be to legally order us to provide a defense that would be legally binding,” Jordan said.
Ward 2 Councilman James Cooper and Ward 6 Councilwoman JoBeth Hamon voted against the resolution.
Former legislator sues OTA over tolls
On July 8, a former state senator filed a lawsuit against the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, Department of Transportation and Transportation Commission alleging that the charging of tolls along the Will Rogers Turnpike is illegal.
The plaintiff, former Sen. Kevin Easley, said in his petition that a bill passed in 2000 and signed by former Gov. Frank Keating directed the Oklahoma Transportation Commission to lease the turnpike from the OTA to avoid having to build a separate four-lane free highway parallel to the Will Rogers Turnpike, which it had previously been directed to do.
“On March 13, 2025, the additional access point and interchange with State Highway 20 on the Will Rogers Turnpike at Flint Road opened to public use with no free four-lane road parallel to the turnpike, no lease of the turnpike with concomitant elimination of tolls, and no compliance with Section 2004(A),” Easley’s petition stated.
Easley asked the Rogers County District Court to force the OTA, OTC and ODOT to stop charging tolls on that section of the turnpike and pay restitution and damages to Easley and a class of people he defined as anyone who has paid a toll for driving on the section of the turnpike in question.
The OTA, OTC and ODOT have yet to answer Easley’s petition, which was filed by former Senate President Pro Tempore Stratton Taylor, a prominent attorney.
Hunter appeals OSDE social studies standards lawsuit
On July 14, former Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter appealed a decision by an Oklahoma County District Court judge that threw out a lawsuit he filed on behalf of plaintiffs challenging the State Department of Education’s controversial social studies standards that direct students to study “discrepancies in the 2020 presidential election.”
“Last week, we asked the Oklahoma Supreme Court to review the judge’s decision in our case challenging the social studies standards wrongfully adopted by Superintendent (Ryan) Walters and the Oklahoma State Department of Education,” Hunter said in a July 21 press release. “The judge’s ruling of dismissal effectively disenfranchises Oklahoma parents, teachers and the hundreds of thousands of students who have a right to a day in court as to seek a remedy for what was a flawed, undemocratic and propagandized process. We believe the highest court in the state should take cognizance of this case and speak to its worthiness. We also wish to thank Bob Burke, the state’s most respected and prolific author, historian and lawyer, for his work on an amicus brief supporting our appeal.”
In his amicus brief, which has yet to be accepted by the court, Burke said he is “deeply concerned by the recent adoption of social studies standards that insert ideological bias into public school curricula and compel teachers to present partisan narratives as historical fact.”
Although the new standards initially became controversial owing to the addition of religion-based curriculum, the focus shifted after quiet changes directed teachers and students toward widely debunked theories of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election — adjustments that were not posted publicly or specified to board members before the Feb. 27 approval vote. The legality of the standards’ passage was called into question after the then-newly-appointed State Board of Education members asserted they did not have adequate time to review the 177-page standards, as well as any subsequent revisions, after receiving the final version at 4 p.m. the afternoon before the Feb. 27 board meeting.
Oklahoma County District Court Judge Brent Dishman dismissed Hunter’s lawsuit June 13.
“Plaintiffs have not cited any statute or law that supports a finding that these concerns rise to the level of legally protected rights or privileges for students or teachers,” Dishman wrote. “Oklahoma law provides the board with unfettered discretion to adopt and revise subject matter standards like the social studies standards at issue in this action.”
Glossip case set for Aug. 14 status conference
Oklahoma County District Court Judge Heather Coyle scheduled a status conference for Aug. 14 as the latest development in the ongoing case of Richard Glossip.
Glossip, 62, has twice been convicted of first-degree murder for the death of hotel owner Barry Van Treese in 1997, but each conviction has been vacated, most recently this year when the U.S. Supreme Court remanded the case back to Oklahoma County.
The latest issue at hand is a dispute between Glossip’s attorneys and Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond over a proposed plea deal Glossip’s attorneys say Drummond agreed to in 2023. That deal could have allowed Glossip to be released from prison. However, Drummond has insisted that no deal was ever consummated between the two sides — an argument supported by the lack of a signed agreement and other correspondence between the attorneys.
Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, referenced the dispute during an appearance July 21, which ultimately resulted in Glossip being denied bond. Coyle shut down the plea deal discussion during that hearing.
“We aren’t going to hear that argument here today,” Coyle said to Knight during Glossip’s brief appearance before the bench. “You will have an opportunity to be heard. I’m not here for a motion hearing today. Let me stop you there, with all due respect.”
Coyle said a motion hearing for that dispute will be set at the status conference to be held in her courtroom Aug. 14.
Oklahomans charged in national spree of catalytic converter thefts
Several Oklahomans have pleaded guilty for involvement in a “national catalytic converter theft ring,” according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma. Catalytic converters, an automotive part which uses rare metals to trigger chemical reactions that transform car exhaust into less toxic fumes, are fairly valuable as scrap metal, and a wave of thefts drew national attention in the early 2020s.
Navin Khanna, the owner of D.G. Auto Parts in New Jersey, pleaded guilty July 21 to one count of conspiracy and five counts of “engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity.” He was credited by the press release as leading a national theft ring from May 2020 to October 2022.
Oklahomans who have pleaded guilty to involvement in the catalytic converter theft ring include:
- Tyler James Curtis of Wagoner, 26;
- Benjamin Robert Mansour of Bixby, 24;
- Reiss Nicole Biby of Wagoner, 24;
- Parker Star Weavel of Tahlequah, 25;
- Shane Allen Minnick of Haskell, 26;
- Ryan David LaRue of Broken Bow, 29;
- Brian Pate Thomas of Choteau, 25; and
- Michael Anthony Rhoden of Keifer, 26.
Drummond takes over prosecution of Choctaw teacher
On July 21, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced in a press release that he has taken over the prosecution of Samuel Melton, a Choctaw High School teacher accused of rape, sexual battery and sodomy.
Melton was charged in April with 15 felony counts relating to a relationship he allegedly had with Avery Smith, a Choctaw High School student who has chosen to speak publicly about the case.
“I was honored that Attorney General Drummond met with me, took a personal interest and put his A-team into immediate action,” Smith said in the press release.
Smith’s parents also expressed appreciation for Drummond taking over the case.
“We appreciate Attorney General Drummond for taking our concerns seriously and stepping in to fight for us,” Danny and Merissa Smith said in the press release. “We are grateful he is advocating on behalf of our daughter to ensure that justice is served.”
According to court records, Smith was granted a protective order against Melton in April. The criminal case against the teacher is ongoing, and Melton is due back in court for a preliminary hearing conference Aug. 19.
“I will not tolerate predators in our schools,” Drummond said in the press release. “As a father and grandfather, I cannot imagine the damage this abuse has caused to Miss Smith and her family. I commend their courage in standing up to demand justice, and I am committed to doing everything in my power to deliver it.”
Drummond’s office reminds court Okmulgee jailer’s case pending
Solicitor General Gary Gaskins has filed a notice in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma reminding the court about the case of Matthew Douglas, an Okmulgee County jailer charged in tribal court with assaulting a Muscogee Nation police officer in tribal court for a fracas between tribal and county law enforcement in December 2023.
“Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on behalf of Matthew Joseph Douglas hereby provides notice that [a motion to dismiss] filed on April 30, 2024, has been submitted for decision for a period of more than 90 days,” Gaskins wrote. “Specifically, petitioner filed his response in opposition on May 21, 2024, and respondents filed their reply to the response on June 7, 2024. Therefore, the motion has been submitted for a decision for over one year.”
After jailers initially refused to accept a detainee from tribal police officers, a confrontation between officers led to a brief scuffle, and afterwards, the Muscogee Nation filed charges in tribal court against Douglas, a non-tribal citizen. The nation argued the prosecution of non-tribal citizens in tribal court for assaulting a tribal police officer is authorized by federal law, while Drummond filed a separate case in federal court to argue the nation lacks jurisdiction over Douglas.
Tulsa County DA, sheriff ask for stay citing SCOTUS petition
Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler and Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regaldo filed a joint motion to stay a lawsuit filed by the Muscogee Nation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, citing a pending petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court. The two elected officials were sued by the nation in their official capacity for exercising criminal jurisdiction over tribal citizens within the Muscogee Nation Reservation in February.
On July 7, Marvin Keith Stitt petitioned the SCOTUS to review his traffic ticket case and determine whether Oklahoma “may exercise criminal jurisdiction over an Indian for conduct in Indian County absent a valid congressional grant of authority.” On July 11, Kunzweiler and Regaldo filed a joint motion requesting their case be stayed pending the outcome of the petition from Stitt, the brother of Gov. Kevin Stitt who has fought a speeding ticket the Tulsa Police Department issued to him while driving in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation.
“In (the) Stitt (case), the petitioner asks the Supreme Court to resolve ‘whether a state may exercise criminal jurisdiction over an Indian for conduct in Indian Country absent a valid congressional grant of authority,'” Kunzweiler’s attorneys wrote. “That question is precisely the same legal issue at the heart of the nation’s claim here, where it seeks a declaration and injunction prohibiting the county (i.e., the state) from exercising criminal jurisdiction over Indians for conduct occurring within the Creek Reservation (i.e., Indian Country) without express congressional approval.”
The Muscogee Nation responded a week later, opposing the motion to stay and arguing that the potential for a Supreme Court decision in Stitt’s case is pure speculation.
“Defendants make no attempt to argue that the Supreme Court is likely to issue a writ of certiorari in the Stitt case, and every reason exists to think it will not,” the nation’s attorneys wrote. “Accordingly (with a settlement agreement), the City of Tulsa, while the putative respondent in the Stitt matter, no longer has a dog in that fight. It would be highly unusual for the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari in a case where the respondent lacks any real stake in the outcome.”
(Update: This article was updated at 9:55 a.m. Monday, Aug. 4, to clarify information about the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority litigation.)
