Last Friday afternoon, Christopher Lane, a college athlete out for a jog, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting, shot in the back and left for dead in an upper middle class area of Duncan, Oklahoma. Police have since arrested three juveniles, aged 15, 16, and 17, in connection with Lane's death.
The story of the murder of the East Central University baseball player has captured international headlines. The victim is an Australian national who was attending ECU on a baseball scholarship. Friends say he had returned to Oklahoma after a visit with family in Melbourne only three days before his murder. The age of his assailants is shocking, but perhaps not as shocking as their reason for killing. According to Duncan police, they simply decided to kill someone. Lane was chosen at random.
Duncan police chief Danny Ford said Lane was,"victim of opportunity. I’m sorry to say that. Somebody would have died that day, somebody mowing their yard--these boys had made up their mind."
Police and witnesses say that Lane was out for a jog in an affluent area of Duncan near the intersection of Country Club Road and Twilight Beach Road when he was shot shortly before 3:00 p.m. Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot, seeing Lane stagger across the road, and hearing tires squeal away from the scene. One bystander rushed to perform CPR while another called 9-1-1. Despite the swift medical attention and rapid response of police, Lane died of his injuries a short time later at Duncan Regional Hospital.
Witnesses described seeing a black car with a white sticker fleeing the scene, and based upon the route the suspects took to escape, police believed the assailants to be local. They got their break a short time later when a parent called police to say that several teenagers were coming over to kill his son. When police arrived, they found the three suspects sitting in a car matching the description of the vehicle that fled the scene of Lane's murder.
The 16-year-old suspect confessed to pulling the trigger and ending Lane's life, saying he "just wanted to kill someone." Police Chief Ford said that the teens had posted messages on their Facebook walls indicating their violent plans. He said, "I think they were on a killing spree. We would have had more bodies that night if we didn't get them."
Although some media reports indicate that the three teens, who are charged with first degree murder, face the death penalty, federal law prohibits capital punishment of juveniles who were under the age of 18 when their crimes were committed. However, in Oklahoma, juveniles aged 15, 16, and 17 who are charged with murder and other specified violent crimes and sex offenses are prosecuted as adults.
One of the major factors in allowing a child to play team sports is to encourage him or her to learn good sportsmanship--how to win and how to lose with equal grace. Unfortunately, the lesson of good sportsmanship seems to be hard to learn--not for young team members, but for their parents. In some cases, unsportsmanlike parents take their anger, aggression, and foul mouths and escalate them to violence. For one Oklahoma City dad, bad sportsmanship at a high school basketball game has led to a felony assault charge.
Who is he accused of assaulting? Another mouthy parent? A coach whose strategies cost the game? A referee who missed the call?
No.
Lee Roy Prince, Jr., is accused of shoving and choking a 17-year-old girls' basketball player.
On June 5, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes hosted a basketball tournament at Frederick A. Douglass Mid-High School in Oklahoma City. The Douglass Lady Trojans--who were named district champions earlier in the year--took on the Comets of the Classen School for Advanced Studies.
As frequently happens in basketball, two players got into a scuffle over a loose ball. That's when spectators and police say Prince got too involved in his daughter's game.
According to an affidavit filed in Oklahoma County District Court, as a Classen player got up off the floor after the altercation, Prince ran out of the stands and tackled the girl, causing her to strike her head on the floor before he pinned her to the floor with his forearm pressed to her throat. The Comets' coach and the victim's father attempted to pull the defendant off of the player, but he allegedly refused to let her go, continuing to keep her in a choke hold.
Eventually, the coach and the victim's father were able to pull the man off of the player and escort him from the gymnasium.
The victim sustained a cut lip, bruising to her arms, and scratches to her shoulders and chest.
Prince is charged with aggravated assault and battery, a felony punishable by a maximum of five years in prison and a fine of up to $500.
Oklahoma law defines "aggravated assault and battery" in 21 O.S. § 644:
A. An assault and battery becomes aggravated when committed under any of the following circumstances:
1. When great bodily injury is inflicted upon the person assaulted; or
2. When committed by a person of robust health or strength upon one who is aged, decrepit, or incapacitated, as defined in Section 641 of this title.
B. For purposes of this section "great bodily injury" means bone fracture, protracted and obvious disfigurement, protracted loss or impairment of the function of a body part, organ or mental faculty, or substantial risk of death.
The definition of aggravated assault as one which causes great bodily injury or one perpetrated against an elderly or frail person may be difficult for a prosecutor to prove. After all, the alleged victim is young and healthy--a high school athlete. A busted lip and bruises hardly amount to the injuries described in the statute. Although the assault of a minor by an adult is not acceptable, the legal definition may provide some leeway for a defense lawyer to negotiate a reduced charge. Simple assault and battery is misdemeanor punishable by a maximum of 90 days in county jail and a fine of up to $1,000--a much better alternative than felony conviction.
In late July, the FBI announced the results of "Operation Cross Country 7," a human trafficking crackdown conducted across the nation that led to hundreds of arrests and the rescue of 105 victims of sex trafficking. The victims were reported to be between the ages of 9 and 17. In Oklahoma City, three teen girls were rescued and 60 adults were arrested for prostitution, aiding prostitution, or pimping. In one case, an 18-year-old woman and a 22-year-old woman are accused of driving the 16-year-old victim to a hotel. While the older woman waited in a car, the 18-year-old and 16-year-old negotiated with an undercover officer they believed to be a customer, or john, to engage in a menage a trois. The two older women were arrested on the scene, and the 16-year-old was taken into protective custody.
However, this national initiative was not the end of the story for sex trafficking in Oklahoma. On July 31, Tulsa police arrested an Oklahoma City couple who traveled to Tulsa to pick up a girl they believed to be 17-years-old. They told the undercover officer posing as a teen on an internet site they would put her to work as a stripper and internet escort in Dallas and Las Vegas. Under federal and state law, anyone who allows or aids a minor under the age of 18 to engage in a commercial sex act is considered to be trafficking in persons.
Now, Tulsa police have arrested yet another woman on a complaint of human trafficking. They say 23-year-old Alaina Paige Lamecker made arrangements to meet an undercover officer at a local hotel after the officer responded to an online ad. Lamecker allegedly brought with her a 14-year-old girl and negotiated a price of $120 for sex with the young teen. She was arrested on an human trafficking complaint as well as a complaint of soliciting prostitution within 1,000 feet of a church. Her bail was set at $101,500.
Human trafficking, whether labor trafficking or sex trafficking, is a violation of both Oklahoma law and federal law. Typically, it is prosecuted as a state crime, but there are several situations in which the federal government will take jurisdiction. Under federal law, sex trafficking is prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 1591, Sex Trafficking of Children or by Force, Fraud, or Coercion. If a commercial sex act involves a minor aged between 14 and 18, it is punishable by a maximum of 40 years in federal prison. If it involves a minor under the age of 14 or if it is perpetrated through force, fraud, or coercion, it is punishable by life in prison.
Oklahoma's human trafficking law is outlined in 22 O.S. § 748. The statute clearly defines the terms related to sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Human trafficking in Oklahoma is punishable by a minimum of 5 years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. If, however, the victim is under the age of 18, the penalties are doubled, with a minimum of 10 years in the state penitentiary and a maximum fine of $20,000. Additionally, anyone found guilty of human trafficking is ordered to pay restitution to the victim.
They say that all is fair in love and war, but that little adage does not apply when it comes to Oklahoma statutory rape laws. Typically, people think of statutory rape as otherwise consensual sex that occurs between an adult and a minor too young to provide legal consent. However, statutory rape and sex crimes can also occur between two otherwise consenting adults under certain aspects of state law.
It is a detail which a former mail clerk with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC) is finding out the hard way.
Terry Dianne Katz, 55, has been charged with forcible oral sodomy and sexual battery after an encounter with a Department of Corrections inmate while she was working at DOC headquarters in Oklahoma City. A co-worker allegedly overheard Katz telling another person that she performed oral sex on the 35-year-old prisoner, who was working maintenance on the facility. The co-worker reported the incident to authorities.
Investigators say Katz admitted to the act, and she was fired from her job and criminally charged in Oklahoma County District Court.
Clearly, a 35-year-old man is well over the legal age of consent in Oklahoma, but state laws forbid sex between certain parties, regardless of age, when one person is in a position of authority over another.
Second degree rape, or statutory rape, is an act of sexual intercourse that occurs between two individuals when one is unable to provide legal consent due to age, mental illness, or custodial status. When oral sex is performed on or by a person legally unable to consent, the crime with which the defendant is charged is forcible oral sodomy. Forcible sodomy is defined under 21 O.S. § 888 as "the detestable and abominable crime against nature":
Forcible sodomy is a felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison.
It seems clear that this law is designed to prevent an abuse of power by someone in authority, particularly in the state's schools and prisons. But is a mail clerk really in a position of authority over a DOC inmate serving seven years for a drug possession conviction? Her actions may be considered unethical and immoral, but it seems a stretch to consider them criminal until one looks at the letter of the law. Under state law, she is facing serious time and a felony conviction that could have a negative impact on her future employment opportunities, gun possession rights, voting rights, and more collateral consequences.
Two men have been arraigned in federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and identity theft for crimes committed in Oklahoma and other states.
Kevin Konstantinov, 50, and Elvin Alisuretov, 36, both of Washington, are accused of using a Murphy Gas master pump key to install credit card skimming devices on gas pumps, leaving them in place for a month or two, and collecting account information and PIN numbers from unsuspecting customers' credit cards. Konstantinov and Alisuretov allegedly transferred the stolen information to counterfeit credit and debit cards, then used the fraudulent cards to withdraw cash from ATM machines, depositing some into personal accounts. Investigators say that approximately 300 Murphy Gas customers from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas were affected, losing a total of approximately $400,000 dollars.
The men are allegedly seen on surveillance video using debit and credit cards at Oklahoma ATMs. Secret Service agents, who picked up the case after being alerted by authorities in Durant, Oklahoma, say the men visited at least 17 ATMs on one day alone. They say one video shows a suspect swiping card after card at an automated teller machine, using the machine for 16 minutes straight.
The men are accused of committing the skimming fraud from April 2012 until January 2013. The were investigated by the Durant Police Department, the Muskogee Police Department, and the United States Secret Service.
Identity theft as defined under 18 USC § 1028 is punishable by a maximum of 15 years in prison.
Credit card skimming is a type of credit card fraud in which an electronic device--an illegitimate credit card reader--is swiped during a legitimate business transaction. Small, portable skimmers may collect credit and debit card information at a restaurant, and now these devices are increasingly being implanted in gas pumps.
Financial consulting firm Javelin Strategy and Research reports that in 2011, approximately 11.6 million Americans were the victims of identity theft--about 1 in 20. Of these cases, around 66 percent involved existing debit or credit card accounts.
Gas pump skimming is often associated with international criminal syndicates based in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Konstantinov and Alisuretov, for example, are suspected of being associated with fraudulent activity in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Authorities say that consumers can help protect themselves by checking to see if gas pumps have a safety seal that shows a credit card scanner has not been tampered with or replaced and by using debit cards as credit cards to avoid the theft of their Personal Identification Numbers (PIN).
A former Putnam City High School Spanish teacher was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to sex with a student. Lisa M. Kays, 48, Yukon, pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including three counts of second degree rape and two counts of forcible oral sodomy.
Kays was accused of having sex with student who was a 17-year-old junior at the time. Prosecutors recommended a 15 year sentence with all but the first 8 years suspended.Her defense attorney argued that all of her sentence should be suspended because the consensual relationship would have been legal had Kays not been a teacher.
Kays herself pleaded for leniency, accepting blame and saying that she has already been punished for her actions by losing "everything [she] has worked for."
The age of consent in Oklahoma is 16; however, there are certain situations in which an individual aged 16 and older is not able to provide legal consent. Oklahoma's rape law is outlined in 21 O.S. § 1111. Sex between a student and a teacher is included as an example of rape:
A. Rape is an act of sexual intercourse involving vaginal or anal penetration accomplished with a male or female who is not the spouse of the perpetrator and who may be of the same or the opposite sex as the perpetrator under any of the following circumstances: . . .
8. Where the victim is at least sixteen (16) years of age and is less than twenty (20) years of age and is a student, or under the legal custody or supervision of any public or private elementary or secondary school, junior high or high school, or public vocational school, and engages in sexual intercourse with a person who is eighteen (18) years of age or older and is an employee of the same school system.
In other words, a 16-20 year old student who is legally able to consent to sex with almost anyone else cannot legally consent to sex with an employee of the same school system, even if that employee is not the student's teacher. The offense is charged as second degree rape, also commonly known as statutory rape.
Oklahoma County District Judge Ray C. Elliot was unswayed by Kays's plea for mercy, but neither did he levy the sentence recommended by prosecution. He sentenced the former teacher to 4 years in prison followed by 6 years of probation. Additionally, as a person convicted of second degree rape and forcible oral sodomy, Lisa Kays will be designated a Level 3 Sex Offender and required to register as an Oklahoma Sex Offender for life.
A woman and her 7-year-old daughter got quite a shock when they went to use the outhouse at White Water Park in Sand Springs, Oklahoma. The woman said she noticed water moving in the holding tank beneath the toilet and looked more closely, only to discover a man peering up at her and her daughter from the excrement and filth below.
Police and firefighters responded 15 minutes later and pulled 52-year-old Kenneth Webster Enlow from the filth below. The man was covered in feces, and firefighters sprayed him off with a fire hose before he was transported to Oklahoma State University Medical Center in Tulsa for evaluation.
Enlow told police that he was in the tank because his girlfriend had hit him in the head with a tire iron before driving him to Keystone Dam and dumping him in the toilet. However, the woman who reported him said that Enlow did not call for help or seem distressed to be in the holding tank until police arrived. Enlow said that he was unconscious from being struck in the head and was unable to call for help until he came to when police arrived. However, the arrest report indicates that Enlow had numerous scratches to his arms but no injuries consistent with being struck by a tire iron.
After evaluation at the hospital, Enlow was booked into the Tulsa jail on a peeping tom complaint with bail set at $500. He is also being held in connection with embezzlement and trash dumping charges out of Okmulgee County.
If the district attorney files charges in the case, a mental competency evaluation may be requested.
Oklahoma's peeping tom law typically considers the act a misdemeanor; however, a person is photographed or video-recorded by a peeping tom, the act is elevated to a felony. The peeping tom statute is 21 O.S. § 1171:
A. Every person who hides, waits or otherwise loiters in the vicinity of any private dwelling house, apartment building, any other place of residence, or in the vicinity of any locker room, dressing room, restroom or any other place where a person has a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy, with the unlawful and willful intent to watch, gaze, or look upon any person in a clandestine manner, shall, upon conviction, be guilty of a misdemeanor. The violator shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term of not more than one (1) year, or by a fine not to exceed Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or by both such fine and imprisonment.
B. Every person who uses photographic, electronic or video equipment in a clandestine manner for any illegal, illegitimate, prurient, lewd or lascivious purpose with the unlawful and willful intent to view, watch, gaze or look upon any person without the knowledge and consent of such person when the person viewed is in a place where there is a right to a reasonable expectation of privacy, or who publishes or distributes any image obtained from such act, shall, upon conviction, be guilty of a felony. The violator shall be punished by imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for a term of not more than five (5) years, or by a fine not exceeding Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00), or by both such fine and imprisonment.
The statute continues by defining taking clandestine photographs or video of an unsuspecting person's "private area" as a misdemeanor offense.
Even as a misdemeanor, having a peeping tom conviction can bring personal embarrassment, professional difficulties, and significant legal ramifications. If you are accused of loitering for the purpose of looking upon another in a clandestine manner, contact an attorney to determine your best course of action for legal defense.
Lake Hefner is a popular destination as an urban oasis in the heart of Oklahoma City. On sunny days, families and fitness enthusiasts flock to the lake for walking, running, cycling, or rollerblading along the trails; sailing, fishing, or kiteboarding on the lake; golfing on the park's golf course; or dining at one of the lakeside restaurants. But it's not all good clean fun at Lake Hefner.
Over a four-day sting beginning last Thursday, the Oklahoma City Police Department's IMPACT unit arrested 34 men on complaints of engaging in public lewdness. The police arrived at Lake Hefner's Hobie Point after a man sailing with his two sons called police saying he saw two men engaging in a public sex act. Within two hours, reports say, police set up operations at Hobie Point and arrested nearly three dozen men over the course of four days.
Among those arrested were a former Piedmont city councilman and an employee of the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office, who was fired after his arrest. The men were arrested on municipal complaints and fined a joint total of $43,000. They will not be criminally charged in state court, although violating the state's public decency statutes is a misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum of one year in county jail if prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office.
Engaging in public lewdness is not considered a sex crime, and it is defined under the same statute the includes public urination. Oklahoma law defines public indecency under 21 O.S.§ 22:
“Every person who willfully and wrongfully commits any act which grossly injures the person or property of another, or which grossly disturbs the public peace or health, or which openly outrages public decency, including but not limited to urination in a public place, and is injurious to public morals, although no punishment is expressly prescribed therefore by this code, is guilty of a misdemeanor.”
The sting conducted last week and early this week was not the first attempt Oklahoma City police have made to clean up Hobie Point.
In February 2012, police arrested 16 men on public indecency complaints, including a Boy Scout leader, whose membership in the organization was revoked upon his arrest; however, the case against him was eventually dismissed.
In April 2009, police arrested 16 men at Hobie Point on indecent exposure complaints. Unlike outraging public decency, indecent exposure is a felony sex crime punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison, $20,000 in fines, and lifetime registration as an Oklahoma sex offender. After Oklahoma City police announced those arrests, Sergeant Jennifer Wardlow told reporters, "I can't say whether five years from now whether it will be the same.We are proactive in our approach in trying to eliminate this." More than four years later, it is not the same--the number of arrests in a four-day span have more than doubled.
Lake Hefner park officials assert that Hobie Park is safe for families. However, you just might want to put blinders on the kids if you are in that area.
Bullying used to involve name calling, stolen lunch money, and playground fights. According to a recent Bloomberg News article, bullying and "hazing" have become increasingly sexually violent. The report quotes child psychologist Susan Lipkin as saying that social media fuels brutal hazing as perpetrators learn new methods for brutalizing their victims from seeing what others are doing. "Each time a hazing occurs," she says, "the perpetrators add their own mark to it by increasing the pain or humiliation." For most young teenage boys, nothing could be more painful and more humiliating that being penetrated anally.
The Bloomberg article, by Chris Staiti and Barry Bortnick illustrates the dramatic increase in sexual assaults cloaked as hazing: "More than 40 high school boys were sodomized with foreign objects by their teammates in over a dozen alleged incidents reported in the past year, compared with about three incidents a decade ago." The authors say their statistics were gleaned from reviewing court documents and news reports about sexual abuse during hazing.
An early mention of anal penetration in sports hazing involved a 2010 case in which a high school wrestler, a senior, was accused of sexually abusing a younger boy during practice. Preston Hill, then 17, said he had performed a legal wrestling maneuver known as the "butt drag" to try to get his younger opponent to move. The "victim" told his parents and police that Hill, whom he also accused of bullying him at other times, had performed the move so forcefully that he inserted two fingers into his rectum through his clothing. Hill denied the allegations, and after a lengthy process that involved a criminal charge of misdemeanor sexual battery and his expulsion from school, the accused was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. According to witnesses, the "victim" was joking around during practice and did not complain about the "assault" until after he told his parents about the incident. His father, a former counselor for a child abuse agency, is accused of making a mountain out of a molehill in alleging sexual assault as a result of wrestling move performed legally during a high school practice.
But what about other instances of anal assault in sports? Over the past years, several instances have occurred in which athletes have penetrated their younger teammates with fingers, pencils, broom handles, jump rope handles, sticks, a broken flag pole, a javelin, and more--all in the name of hazing. In several of these instances, a teacher or coach is accused of knowing about the crime and doing nothing to prevent it, nor to report it to authorities even though reporting child abuse is required by law. In some cases, the adults are accused of even encouraging the acts. In at least one case, a coach has been arrested and charged after witnessing his soccer players assaulting new teammates with fingers and sticks to "reward" them. He allegedly told his younger players that the varsity team would sodomize them if they didn't perform well.
In other cases, though, these incidents are handled with a "boys will be boys" mentality, and the accusers are bullied further, accusing them of tattling or lying. In one small town, several wrestlers are accused of binding a 14-year-old teammate with duct tape and sodomizing him with a pencil. The community was outraged--not by the acts of the perpetrators, but by the victim's family reporting the assault to police when the school did nothing more than give the assailants one day of in-school suspension. One townsperson told Bloomberg, “When I was in school there might have been bullying, but there was none of this crap about telling the school.” The victim's father, who was the principal of the school, had to accept a buyout of his contract and leave town. The wrestling coach, who told the father, "This happens 1,000 times a day around the U.S.," was allowed to keep his job.
There is no question that many incidents get blown out of proportion, and criminal prosecution seems to be overkill for a minor incident. However, the rate and violence of sexual assault as hazing seems to be increasing, and it is critical to weigh each incident carefully in order to protect victims of sexual assault as well as victims of false accusation.
He is accused of the brutal rape and murder of an 84-year-old woman, yet prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against Tyrone Dale David Woodfork. The Tulsa County District Attorney's Office points to Woodfork's low IQ and history of mental limitations in removing the death penalty as a possible sentence for his alleged crimes, instead seeking life or life without parole.
Woodfork is charged with multiple felony counts, including one count of first degree murder, two counts of first degree rape, two counts of armed robbery, one count of burglary, and one count of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors say he broke into the home of an elderly couple, Bob and Nancy Strait, beating them both and raping Nancy Strait. She died of complications from head trauma the day following the attack. Bob Strait died less than two months later, but because a medical examiner said his probable cause of death was underlying health conditions, Woodfork was not charged in his death.
Although the prosecutors considered seeking death penalty due to the "egregious nature of the crime" and the age of the victim, the D.A.'s office determined that Woodfork's borderline I.Q. could render him ineligible for the death penalty.
In 2002, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded defendants is unconstitutional. However, the ruling left it up to the states to determine what constitutes mental retardation for exclusion from the death penalty.
In Murphy v. State, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals specified the following criteria for determining mental retardation in capital cases: First, an I.Q. of 70 or below, and additionally, a preponderance of evidence indicating the following:
