[…]
Unfortunately for McCarty, he lost his reelection bid from his district in 1966, and the IRS descended upon him with tax evasion charges. His critics unkindly claimed that he failed to report his many bribes. In any event, he was convicted and sent to jail. Thus, in a few short years, leading state judges and the powerful former speaker had proven to be corrupt.
The temporary Capitol was in Guthrie, OK. But the plan for a permanent Capitol Building brought with it a fight between the republicans in the West, and the Democrats in the East. they originally sought to create 2 states (Oklahoma & Sequoyah), but Roosevelt didn’t want another Democrat state(Sequoyah), so he supported a 1-state solution and hoped the Western republicans would prevail. The New Jerusalem
William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray proposed buying a township for the capital. He proposed selling lots around the capitol building and said the chosen place should have “good drainage and a picturesque grandeur. ” This and similar plans became known as the “new Jerusalem” approach to the capital - creating an entirely new city on the prairie with construction of the Capitol funded by the platting and selling of lots.
On Nov. 3, 1908, an election was held on a state question calling for the acquisition of a capital site and the selling of lots to finance construction of the Capitol. Although more voters than not approved the measure, it did not pass by the necessary majority.
Special Election
When he signed a proclamation calling for a special election on the matter, Governor Haskell, of Muskogee; crossed out the original election date of June 14, a Tuesday, and changed it to the preceding Saturday.
That meant election results would not be available until the next day, a Sunday, when Guthrie partisans could not find a court open to file for an injunction to stop the transfer of government.
Despite his pretense of neutrality, Haskell, a Democrat, had been stung by barbed criticism in Guthrie’s Republican newspaper. Sound familiar? Also, “drunken hoodlums” in the city’s Elks Club had mutilated a picture of Haskell, and territorial Gov. Frank Frantz (a Republican) “acted the jackass” by refusing to participate in Haskell’s inauguration ceremonies, a Guthrie paper reported.
Oklahoma City sent out trainloads of boosters to canvass the state on June 5. The following Saturday, 160,000 voters - all of them male - went to the polls. Oklahoma City won handily. Guthrie was second and Shawnee a distant third.
Capture The Flag
Legends surround the removal of the seal in 1910, and the truth - not nearly as colorful - has been washed by the passage of time. So nobody really knows exactly how Oklahoma City became the state capital a bit earlier, shall we say, than expected. Dirty laundry is how one source says it happened. Dirty tricks is how Guthrie partisans saw it.
W.B. Anthony, who was Gov. Charles Haskell’s secretary in the days when men were secretaries and women did the wash, said he smuggled the seal out of Guthrie’s interim capitol building in a bundle of clothing. This was in the wee hours of June 12, 1910. Anthony later told an historian that he drove to Guthrie in a car rented for the purpose by the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce.
Arriving at 3 a.m., Anthony told a guard he needed to retrieve some laundry in an office. The seal had earlier been concealed in the clothing. The drive back to the new capital city took three hours, owing as one history book puts it to “rutted, red dirt roads through the blackjacks. ”
Stolen Seal Finds Home
The trip north had actually taken longer because of a flat tire at Seward. Back in Oklahoma City by 7 a.m., Anthony met Gov. Haskell, who arrived that Sunday morning by train from his home in Muskogee.
Haskell declared the capital was now Oklahoma City, and the seat of government was planted in the Lee-Huckins Hotel pending erection of a capitol building.
The fight continued, though, between boosters for Oklahoma City and Guthrie even as the winning city had to referee a debate on where the Capitol should go.
Rick Brinkley was the heir-apparent to the Pro Tem office of the Oklahoma Senate, in 2015. But in late April his Tulsa Better Business Bureau completed an audit which alleged that Brinkley had embezzled over $1 million dollars over a period of about a decade if his leadership of the watchdog institution.
He immediately resign committee chairmanships for the remainder of that session. Brinkley was expected to succeed Sen. Brian Bingman as the next Oklahoma State Senate President Pro Tempore.
Brinkley, in August 2015, initially resigned his seat effective December 31, 2015, citing personal reasons. The resignation came as Brinkley was being investigated by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation on accusations of embezzlement from the Better Business Bureau of Tulsa where he had formerly served as Chief Operating Officer. At the time of his resignation he was being sued by the BBB, with the organization alleging in court filings that Brinkley used the money for “his mortgage, pool cleaner, personal credit card invoices, and to support a hidden gambling habit, in an amount believed to be in excess of $1,800,000.” He resigned, effective immediately, nine days later upon agreeing with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to five wire fraud counts and one false income tax return count related to the embezzlement charges.
At the time, Brinkley was also pastoring a church in his Owasso-area district.
[…] 
During A Saturday radio interview With OKC radio host, Scott Mitchell; Terrill talked about “reprehensible conduct” taking place at the Capitol involving House members, issues involving House members having sex with staffers and House members working on the House floor while drinking vodka and impaired voting.
“More than half-a-dozen members partake of a drink in late night sessions. Some have come back impaired after a late dinner – something that is specifically prohibited by House rules. Those found guilty of habitual drunkenness can be impeached,” noted Terrill.
Continued Terrill on the Scott Mitchell Show: “How about House members? Our majority floor leader Dan Sullivan who had sex, an extra-marital affair with his chief judiciary staffer, his chief attorney when he was chair of the judiciary committee before he became the majority floor leader and then subsequently arranged for her to have a job, ultimately on the state payroll regulating insurance companies.”
Terrill would later confirm with Red Dirt Report that the staffer who allegedly benefitted was a Tulsa attorney named Melanie Pouncey.
Pouncey, explained Terrill, was chief legal counsel to the judiciary committee when Sullivan was chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
“Dan Sullivan set her up with a job at the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. Then he cut a deal with (former Insurance Commissioner) Kim Holland, which explains why Sullivan was one of three Republicans to endorse Holland over Doak,” said Terrill.
Terrill said Sullivan then moved off the Judiciary Committee and became chair of the Economic Development Committee, all the while he was allegedly having the affair.
Dan Sullivan and Janet Sullivan have since divorced and he is now reportedly married to Pouncey, who had become pregnant.
And after the House leadership caught wind of Sullivan’s behavior, then-Speaker Chris Benge made sure that fraternization with a staff member was a big no-no. So, technically, Sullivan didn’t break any rules and the story was never picked up by the media.
Eventually, Speaker Kris Steele & his team were leveraged out of power. Dan Sullivan sought an opening to lead the Grand River Dam Authority, and was eventually named to that post. He spent the next several years in that cushy appointment.
BRISTOW – Former Creek County Judge Donald Thompson was led from a courtroom in handcuffs in August of 2006, to immediately begin serving a four-year prison term for indecent exposure. District Judge Charles Allen McCall formally sentenced Thompson to the maximum prison term – four one-year terms, all to be served consecutively. In doing so, McCall rejected requests from Thompson’s Tulsa attorneys, Clark Brewster and Rob Nigh, that the retired judge be given a suspended sentence or that the four terms be concurrent, in essence a one-year prison term. A jury on June 29 convicted Thompson of four felony counts of indecent exposure after he was accused of exposing himself by using a penis pump to masturbate during trials in Sapulpa. 
The jury recommended a $10,000 fine and a one-year prison term on each of the convictions. McCall also denied a request from defense attorneys that Thompson remain free on bail while his appeals are heard. The judge ordered Thompson to be taken into custody immediately after the hearing, although he allowed him about 20 minutes to visit with his family and say his goodbyes. |
Corruption ChronicleA retelling of the dubious escapades our past state leaders have been exposed for their role in.    
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