The Oklahoma State Capital

GUTHRIE, Okla. — District 9 District Attorney Jeremiah Gregory issued an extraordinary statement Tuesday night pushing back against the Oklahoma Attorney General’s description of a Guthrie “human trafficking” operation, saying the state’s claim that 15 potential victims had been “recovered” was “wholly misleading” and a “gross misrepresentation of the facts.”

Gregory said no actual human trafficking victims were involved in the prostitution sting that resulted in five arrests at a Guthrie hotel.

Instead, according to the district attorney, law enforcement reserved a hotel room and placed fake online prostitution advertisements as part of the final exercise of a three-day human trafficking training course. Five men who responded to the advertisements and came to the room expecting to pay for sex were arrested by officers participating in the training.

“There were no actual human victims,” Gregory said of that portion of the operation.

The sharply worded statement came in response to Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office announced that its Human Trafficking Response Unit and partner agencies had “arrested five individuals and recovered 15 potential victims during a trafficking bust last week at a Guthrie hotel.”

Gregory said that description was inaccurate.

“As I have confirmed with the Guthrie Police Department, the ‘15 potential victims’ the press release states were ‘recovered’ were actually profiles on the internet,” Gregory said.

According to Gregory, the profiles were provided to officers during the training to teach them how to use open-source information to identify and locate people who might be victims of human trafficking.

Law enforcement never made in-person contact with any of the 15, Gregory said.

“To state that ‘15 potential victims’ were ‘recovered’ is a gross misrepresentation of the facts,” Gregory said. “The public has been led to believe these ‘15 potential victims’ were found at this hotel. This is patently false.”

The clarification comes after the attorney general’s press release was picked up by Oklahoma television broadcasters and a local media report circulated heavily on social media, setting off concern among some Guthrie residents who appeared to believe authorities had uncovered a human trafficking ring operating from a local hotel.

The "bust" set off a firestorm of social media activity in Guthrie where Facebook comments reviewed by the Oklahoma State Capital showed some commenters expressing fears that local children could be at risk.

“Even in small towns People watch you kids!!!” one commenter wrote.

Another declared, “Guthrie is going to hell in a handbasket!”

One poster published information about a private business associated with one of the men arrested. While some reminisced about having known that person in the past.

Another simply posted a GIF of a woodchipper.

One described a man who had approached her child.

One commenter questioned whether the hotel itself had been involved, asking, “Is anyone asking the hotel what was their part in this?”

Gregory’s statement now makes clear that the hotel was the site selected by law enforcement for the sting rather than the location of a human trafficking operation allegedly being run by the five defendants.

“Skull Games Solutions,” a nongovernmental organization working with the Attorney General’s Human Trafficking Response Unit, placed fake prostitution advertisements inviting prospective customers to a hotel room reserved by law enforcement, according to Gregory.

Five men — Carlos Rubio De Santiago, Kenneth Blevins, Victor Najera, Elwyn Patmon and Johnny Goforth — allegedly responded to the advertisements and arrived at the hotel.

Each has since been charged in Logan County District Court with one felony count of engaging in or soliciting prostitution and one felony count of violating the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act.

None is charged with human trafficking.

Gregory specifically addressed what he called the “most noteworthy misinformation” resulting from coverage of the operation: the belief that the five defendants were accused of holding or trafficking women.

The defendants are not accused of harboring or trafficking human beings, Gregory said.

“The only parties involved in this solicitation case were the five defendants now charged with solicitation and the law enforcement officers waiting at the hotel to arrest them,” he said.

The district attorney also offered new details about three women who had previously been described as potential trafficking victims.

An earlier Guthrie News Page report, based on information supplied by Skull Games Solutions, said participants had identified 15 potential victims and two suspected traffickers during the intelligence portion of the training and that “three victims were ultimately recovered.”

Gregory described the three differently.

He said that, in a separate training scenario the same day, three prostitutes were contacted by officers participating in the course and asked to come discuss services available to help them leave prostitution.

“Law enforcement determined at that time that these three individuals were not direct victims of a sex trafficker and were working on their own,” Gregory said.

None of the three was connected to the five men arrested in the solicitation sting, he said.

That distinction substantially changes the picture presented in the first public accounts of the operation.

The Attorney General’s Monday release said authorities had “recovered 15 potential victims” and that those recovered were offered victim services. It also characterized the activity at the Guthrie hotel as a “trafficking bust.”

The earlier Skull Games account described 15 potential victims as having been identified for follow-up investigation, while three people were described as having been recovered.

Gregory now says the 15 were merely online profiles used as part of an open-source intelligence exercise, while the three women contacted separately were determined by law enforcement not to be direct victims of a sex trafficker.

“The public deserves the whole truth and nothing but the truth from their elected officials,” Gregory said, “and I cannot sit idly by and permit this aggrandizing misinformation to continue circulating in our community.”

The Attorney General’s office had not, as of this morning, publicly responded to Gregory’s statement.

Criminal charges are accusations and are not findings of guilt. All five defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.