The Oklahoma State Capital

On Thursday the news of additional grand jury indictments was released. These indictments were delivered by the same grand jury that is suppose to be investigating the "ghost" employees in the Oklahoma Department of Health. As I read the details of the latest indictments, I realized a scary fact "This is a Witch Hunt!"

For some crazy reason the grand jury has stopped issuing indictments of the "ghosts" in the Health Department and has suddenly indicted a Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lieutenant who had retired last year after nearly 18 years of service. What was he indicted for? Apparently he used his state issued cell phone for private business. It would also seem that he used a state issued fuel card to buy gasoline. Possibly this gasoline was used for his own personal use. Stop the presses! We have criminal activity here!

According to Attorney General Drew Edmondson's assistant, this state police officer is also accused of doing private work for the State Insurance fund while he was being paid as a police officer. The allegation is very vague about if this was any substantial amount of time at all. These three felony indictments could carry up to 30 years in prison.

Excuse me, have we lost all form of common sense? What is really going on here? Are we to believe that the citizens of this state are going to foot the bill to prosecute an individual who gave 18 years of service to our state because he may have made a personal call from a state cell phone? Has anyone stopped to realize that this OHP Lieutenant had a state issued take home car which would force him to use the fuel card?

To make matters worse is the disdain shown to the police officer by the Attorney General's office. The AG's office demanded that this officer be held on bond. This was done despite the fact that the officer had returned from military service in Bosnia just to testify before the grand jury. Dont you think that if the officer was going to run that he would have done it in Bosnia? Is this how we treat our military men?

I smell a rat! I refuse to believe that it is just chance that has propelled the grand jury's investigation from the Department of Health scandal to this travesty of justice. Why would the Attorney General of Oklahoma waste our taxpayer dollars on this investigation?

Maybe a little background information would help. The particular police officer being prosecuted is Lt. Paul D. Gordon.

In the spring of 1997, Lt. Gordon sent shock waves through Department of Public Safety and the State Capitol.

Gordon is the operator of a school that trains private investigators. As part of the training the future investigators are asked to dumpster dive public dumpsters. This demonstration teaches the investigators how much valuable material con artist can gain by riffling the contents of a dumpster. Because of the close proximity of the school to the Classen Tower, one of Gordon's students took trash from their dumpster. When the student returned to class he brought trashed documents from State Auditor Clifton Scott's office which is located in the Classen Tower. Scott was then involved in the fruitless investigation of Gov. Keating's airplane and the recovered trash referenced this investigation. Gordon realized that this could be a risk to the Auditor's security and did the state a service by informing his OHP supervisor about the security problem.

Gordon's supervisor informed DPS Head Bob Ricks. Ricks got in touch with Scott to make sure the problem was corrected. At some point the Democrats in the Oklahoma Legislature found out about the incident. Apparently without waiting to figure out the facts, the scandal happy Democrats began calling on Bob Ricks to resign his position by insinuating that he had been going through Scott's trash. You can imagine the embarrassment they felt when they realized that Bob Ricks had nothing to do with the incident.

Only four years ago Gordon's students left the Democrat legislators with a face full of egg. Now this dedicated police officer is being indicted for using a state cell phone. Is this just a coincidence? Or is this a witch hunt?