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The Daily Oklahoman posted coverage of the McMahan scandal. Here is an exerpt:

  Jeff McMahan was sentenced  to eight years and a month for taking bribes from a southeast Oklahoma businessman. Wife, Lori McMahan, was sentenced to six years and six months on related charges.

“I am saddened when the political process is corrupted. Seeing people imprisoned generates mixed prosecutorial emotions,” U.S. Attorney Sheldon J. Sperling said Friday.

Jeff McMahan, a Democrat, was accused of showing favoritism as auditor to businessman Steve Phipps in exchange for cash, jewelry, campaign contributions, fishing trips, and trips to places like New Orleans and Boston.

The former state official was convicted of three felony counts June 14. He resigned two days later.

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When Gene Stipe’s political machine imploded, several other elected officials also paid a price for their corruption. Jim Lane was one of them.

  The Tulsa World said;

Ghost employee: Former state Sen. Jim E. Lane of McAlester was sentenced in 2003 to three years probation and two months home detention for his role in funneling illegal money into Walt Roberts’ unsuccessful 1998 congressional campaign. Of the more than $200,000 in illegal money that ended up in the Roberts campaign, most was tied to Stipe, but Lane was directly tied to less than $70,000. Lane’s sentence in the Roberts case came only six months after he was released from prison where he served seven months of a five-year sentence for defrauding the state as a “ghost employee.”

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  After 50 years at the height of political power, Gene Stipe was taken down when term limits started bringing in Republicans to state government in sufficient volume to keep an eye on the “good ol’ boys”.
  The Tulsa World said;

 Gene Stipe: The McAlester Democrat is served a five-year probationary sentence for federal campaign violations and perjury and is in trouble again. After having served more than 50 years in political office, Stipe allegedly continued to hatch political campaign schemes by reimbursing “straw donors” who funneled money to Democratic campaigns. 

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Code Of Silence

In the first decade of the new millennia, an old political machine crumbled under the weight of it’s own corruption. The following is a summary of the Daily Oklahoman’s reporting from the Muskogee Federal Courthouse.

Read the full coverage at the Daily Oklahoman.

MUSKOGEE — Mike Mass, once an influential state representative and a past chairman of the state Democratic Party, became Wednesday the latest crooked Oklahoma politician to be sentenced to prison.

Ex-state Rep. Mike Mass, has written a book about his turbulent years in power and disgrace.

A judge ordered Mass to spend two years in federal prison for taking kickbacks to divert taxpayer money to a gaming machine company and a dog food manufacturing company. A prosecutor said Mass, 57, of Wilburton, has a gambling addiction and left his family destitute. The judge ordered Mass to get treatment, if necessary, and to stay out of casinos while on supervision after his release.

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  Occasionally an elected official gets caught. But in this case the criminal comes forward on his own. Paul Anderson did just this, in 2002.

  The Tulsa World said;

  In Payne County, District Attorney Paul Anderson shocked the legal profession in 2002 when he admitted embezzling $84,000 over five years. He pleaded guilty to three counts of embezzlement and was sentenced to two years in prison. He served less than nine months but made full restitution.

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Lt. Gov’s bodyguard quits amid allegations of affair

December 8, 1998 AP

Trooper Greg Allen

OKLAHOMA CITY - An Oklahoma Highway Patrol bodyguard for Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin has resigned after admitting ”unprofessional conduct” amid allegations by her estranged husband that she had an affair with a bodyguard.

Mrs. Fallin, a Republican who was elected to a second term in 1996, filed for divorce a few weeks after the election. At a hearing, Fallin’s attorney raised an allegation about the lieutenant governor having an affair with an unidentified bodyguard.

In a statement Monday, Public Safety Commissioner Bob Ricks said rumors surfaced in early September about ”alleged unprofessional conduct between a member of the executive security detail and the lieutenant governor.”

The statement said the trooper first denied the allegations, but was again questioned late last month and ”admitted to unprofessional conduct and was permitted to resign. That resignation was accepted last week. His admission did not indicate that sexual activity was involved.”

The Lost Ogle posted this photo of Mary Fallin’s

first marriage being planned at

Hugh Hefner’s Playboy mansion The trooper was not identified and Ricks was reported unavailable for further discussion of the matter.

Lana Tyree, Mrs. Fallin’s attorney, later issued a statement saying the lieutenant governor would have no comment.

”Out of legitimate concern for the privacy and welfare of her minor children through the Christmas holidays, Lieutenant Governor Mary Fallin, having denied the allegations, will not respond to or debate these issues in the media and will make no further public comment,” the statement said. Mrs. Fallin, 43, and her husband have two children, ages 11 and 8.

In court, Mrs. Fallin had said the allegations of an affair with a bodyguard were a rumor started by her husband. At last week’s hearing, District Judge Jerry Bass prevented Fallin’s attorney from pursuing questions about an alleged affair.

In response to a question from his wife’s attorney, Mr. Fallin said he had hired a private investigator to follow her.

Another hearing in the divorce case is set for next Monday.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sex scandal roils Oklahoma politics: 

Official accused of having affair with trooper

Gov. Keating Accused of Hypocrisy

December 12, 1998 Kansas City Star (MO)
TULSA, Okla. – The debate over precisely what constitutes sexual relations has spread from the nation’s capital to this heartland state, where the lieutenant governor is accused of an improper relationship with a state trooper.
The situation has Republican Gov. Frank A. Keating battling partisan charges of hypocrisy for refusing to publicly criticize his second-in-command, Mary Fallin, while condemning President Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinsky as “outrageous” and calling for Clinton’s resignation.
“We have to handle this fairly and professionally and in a nonpartisan fashion, fully independent of what is happening nationally,” Keating said in an interview. “We can’t let the winds of the Washington scandal blow us to the right or left. ”
  The governor added that there was no evidence that sexual intercourse had taken place between Fallin and Greg Allen, a member of her security detail. Keating has nonetheless ordered the state Public Safety Commissioner to leave “no stone unturned” in an official review.
Fallin and Allen – who resigned after acknowledging that he engaged in “unprofessional conduct” – have denied a sexual relationship.
However, Allen admitted that on more than one occasion he had held Fallin’s hand and had comforted her as she wept on his shoulder over her troubled marriage.
He also said that they had kissed – “but merely as you would kiss a friend,” explained his attorney Gary James. For that, James said, Allen initially thought it was best to resign. Allen, who is married, is now asking for his job back.
The firestorm erupted Dec. 4 when Fallin, 43, considered an up-and-coming Republican political figure, announced that she was seeking a divorce. At a sensational court hearing that day, she accused her husband of 14 years of abusing her, of using drugs and of hiring a private investigator to follow her. Joseph Fallin, a dentist, denied the abuse and drugs but admitted hiring the investigator.
“This is about you having an affair with one of your bodyguards, isn’t it?,” Joseph Fallin’s attorney, Bill Liebel, asked Mary Fallin in open court. “That was a rumor started by my husband,” she responded.
The judge quickly called a recess and then barred further reference to the matter. But the cat was out of the bag. A few days later, Public Safety Commissioner Bob Ricks confirmed that Allen had been “permitted to resign,” although the trooper had denied that any “sexual activity” had occurred.
“In all honesty, none of us wanted to know any details,” Ricks said in an interview. “Who wants to go into this salacious area? ” Keating, who is chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association and who has presidential aspirations, is among those who would rather not be dealing with this. But state Democrats seized on the scandal to attack Keating, while avoiding any judgment of Fallin and her marital woes.
“He is a leading critic of the president, and what he is practicing nationally he is not practicing locally,” said Pat Hall, executive director of the state Democratic Party.
A spokesman for Keating responded that the governor’s judgments about Clinton were made after the president admitted an improper relationship with Lewinsky.

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Charles R. Nesbitt

Lame Duck Appointee Attempt:

  Since 1990, the Republicans controlled the commission when they held 2 of the 3 seats. When Commissioner JC Watts was elected to congress in November of 1994, the lame duck governor, David Walters; sought to give the Democrats control of the Commission by appointing former state attorney general Charles Nesbitt as a temporary successor to JC Watts. Gov. Elect, Frank Keating intended to name Ed Apple to the temporary post. The case ended up being argued before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Oklahoma’s governor is sworn in a week after the US Congress swears in their members to a new term.

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  The watchdogs over the state-sanctioned monopolies are called “Corporation Commissioners”. But too often they become cozy with the very corporations they are supposed to be watching.

The Tulsa World said;

Bribery scandal: Another Tulsan, Bob Hopkins, a former state corporation commissioner who represented Tulsa County for 28 years in the state Legislature, was convicted in 1994 of accepting a $10,000 bribe from a Southwestern Bell attorney. In return, Hopkins had voted to allow the telephone company to use $30 million in overcharges. Hopkins died in 1997 at age 68.

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  Many Oklahoma school districts were found to be collecting far more money in property tax than their operations required. That ‘slush fund’ was secretly invested in money markets. As for where that interest income was finally accrued, was even more secret.

  Ironically, it was the IRS which blew the lid on this scheme, by insisting that taxes needed to be paid on this interest income. 

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Gov. David Walters stands before District Judge John Amick in Oklahoma County District Court as he pleads guilty to one misdemeanor count of violating state campaign finance laws. The court room was closed to the public Harry Holloway, of the Oklahoma Historical Society said;

  Then in 1990 a scandal emerged from the gubernatorial campaign of winner and Democrat David Walters. Walters won, but the campaign was accompanied by a barrage of press reports that he had raised and spent more money that any previous candidate. Investigations by the state attorney general and Oklahoma County district attorney led to charges of campaign violations. Walters finally pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. Critics attacked the outcome as letting him escape too easily from more serious charges. Still, the publicity probably moderated some of the worst excesses of campaign finance. And in this case reform had occurred with little federal intervention, in itself a significant gain.

NBC’s “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno showed the headline to his national television audience and quipped: “It’s no secret now. ” The negotiations concluded Oct. 21 with Walters and his wife, Rhonda, being whisked to the Oklahoma County Courthouse where in a late-night rather secretive court session the state’s chief executive stood before a judge and coolly uttered the word - “Guilty” - to a misdemeanor campaign violation. The governor’s attorney, R. Thomas Seymour of Tulsa, who elbowed reporters out of the governor’s way, described the seventh-floor courthouse hallway as a scene “straight out of the movies. ” A noisy throng of journalists and television cameramen as well as curious onlookers, had crowded into the courthouse that night to see history unfold.

  One of the more prominent politicians convicted in the last 25 years of the state’s history was former Gov. David Walters. Walters pleaded guilty in 1993 to a misdemeanor charge of violating a state campaign law in a plea agreement that dismissed eight felony charges of conspiracy and perjury. The conviction also led to his decision not to run for governor again. Walters, a Democrat, became president of Walters Power International, a company that provides huge electricity-generating mobile plants sometimes located in remote regions.