In a month, 1960s rock band The Lovin' Spoonful was scheduled to take the stage at the Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City to dish out its top hits, including "Do You Believe in Magic." Now, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame musicians are cancelling their show after one of the band's members was arrested on child pornography complaints.
Reports say Jerry Yester, 74, was arrested by the Arkansas Attorney General's Cyber Crimes Unit earlier this month. Agents with the Cyber Crimes Unit began investigating Yester after someone using a computer at his address downloaded sexually explicit material involving children.
The Boone County Sheriff’s Department in Harrison, Arkansas, arrested Yester on complaints of 30 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child. He was booked into the Boone County Jail and subsequently released on $35,000 bond.
Upon Yester's arrest and the allegations against him, The Lovin' Spoonful has kicked their longtime bandmate out of the band. Through their publicist, Mark Logsdon, bassist Steve Boone and drummer Joe Butler released a statement regarding Yester's arrest and their decision to let him go:
Because they have not had time to find a replacement for Yester, The Lovin' Spoonful has decided to cancel its tour, including a November 17 stop in Oklahoma City.
A Tower Theatre representative has said that all ticketholders for the cancelled concert will be issued full refunds. For more information, contact nfo@towertheatreokc.com or 708-6937.
Image credit: badgreeb RECORDS
A convicted sex offender wanted in Texas on new sexual assault charges was apprehended late last month at a home in Pottawatomie County.
Eric Masters Castillo, 38, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl and, as a result, was required to register as a sex offender in Bandera County, Texas, beginning in August 2000. Now, he has new charges out of Medina County, Texas: four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, one count of failing to register as a sex offender and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Investigators say Castillo cut off his ankle monitor and fled Texas in order to avoid prosecution.
Last month, U.S. Marshals notified Pottawatomie County Sheriff Mike Booth that Castillo was believed to be living in Shawnee. Together, deputies and marshals determined that Castillo was at a home in Shawnee with his girlfriend and her two children.
When investigators showed up at the home on September 26, Castillo told deputies his name was "Tyler Durden."
Investigators say they found several concerning items, including a loaded pistol on his person, multiple firearms in the home, a gas mask, a bulletproof vest, a helmet, and a Time magazine featuring "notorious serial killers."
Despite the arsenal of weapons, Castillo was arrested without incident. He was booked into the Pottawatomie County jail on complaints of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and carrying a firearm in commission of a felony.
As for his charges in Texas, Castillo faces up to four life sentences if convicted.
A Wellston volunteer firefighter is behind bars in the Lincoln County Jail, accused of sexually assaulting a young girl over a span of "two to four years."
Acting on a report to the Oklahoma Department of Human Services that a girl was the possible victim of child molestation, investigators questioned Stephen Sellers, Jr., who served for eight years as a volunteer firefighter in Wellston, a small town of about 800 people.
Authorities say that when they questioned Sellers, he admitted to engaging in sex acts with the child, who told investigators the assaults were "disgusting and physically painful." Law enforcement officers arrested the accused man on complaints of
rape, forcible sodomy and lewd or indecent acts to a child. As of this writing, he remains in the Lincoln County jail and has not yet been formally charged with any crime.
The potential penalties for the crimes of which Sellers is accused are severe. First degree rape is punishable by 5 years to life in prison. Forcible sodomy is punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison. Lewd or indecent proposals or acts to a child under 16 is punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison if the child involved is aged 12 or older. If, however, the child is under the age of 12, the crime is punishable by 25 years to life in prison.
All three felony sex crimes are considered to be Level III sex offenses. This means anyone convicted of one or more of these crimes in Oklahoma must register as a lifetime sex offender.
Sex offender registration carries with it numerous restrictions and penalties:
Learn more about Oklahoma Sex Offender Registration.
A 34-year-old Yukon man was arrested at his home earlier this month after the Canadian County Sheriff's Office said he unwittingly shared child pornography with a member of the agency's Internet Crimes against Children (ICAC) task force.
Investigators say that, in August, they received child pornography from a computer in the home of Trevor Russom. Investigators served a search warrant at the home earlier this month and conducted a forensic examination of a computer at the home. They reportedly found on the device over 100 videos of child pornography involving preteen girls modeling nude. They say the also found pornographic images of young girls aged 10-15.
When questioned, Russom reportedly admitted to downloading and sharing child pornography. Investigators say he said he had downloaded child pornography from a popular file sharing service as recently as the weekend prior to the search.
While serving the search warrant, deputies also claim to have found marijuana and drug paraphernalia next to a baby bed in Russom's bedroom. They say Russom admitted to using marijuana and to having children sleep overnight in his bedroom.
Deputies arrested Russom on a complaint of aggravated possession of child pornography and seized several electronic devices for further forensic analysis.
The man was booked into the Canadian County Jail and later released on $70,000 bond. He has subsequently been charged with two counts of aggravated possession of child pornography, one count of possession of a controlled substance, and one count possession of drug paraphernalia.
Under 21 § 1040.12a, aggravated possession of child pornography is the possession of 100 or more separate or duplicate sexually explicit images of minors under the age of 18. It is punishable by a maximum of life in prison and a fine of up to $10,000. Anyone convicted of this offense must register as a Level 1 sex offender annually for 15 years.
Jury selection began earlier this week in the case of Alton Nolen, the man accused of beheading one employee and attempting to kill another at Vaughan Foods in Moore, Oklahoma.
Three years ago, on September 25, 2014, a recently-fired Nolen left the facility and quickly returned to another part of the building armed with a "standard knife" of the same type used at the food processing plant. He attacked Colleen Hufford, 54, in a front office, decapitating her with a knife. He then attacked another former co-worker, Traci Johnson, 43, stabbing her several times.
The assault continued until Mark Vaughan, president and chief operating officer of Vaughan Foods and an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office reserve deputy, shot Nolen.
Since then, Nolen has repeatedly tried to plead guilty to the murder and assault and has asked for the death penalty. However, Cleveland County District Judge Lori Walkley has repeatedly declined to accept his guilty plea amid concerns about his mental competency.
Nolen's defense team has argued that the defendant is mentally incompetent and unable to assist in his own defense. Rather than helping them build a defense, they say, he merely pleads guilty. They argued that he is not competent to stand trial.
However, at a mental competency hearing in April, a judge noted the following:
“The evidence indicated that he was able to graduate from high school, play interscholastic sports, gain admission to and attend college, socialize and communicate effectively, work, make efforts to seek higher employment, undertake religious studies, plan and execute goals and live independently. Therefore, it is the finding of this Court that Defendant does not meet the statutory definition of mental retardation.”
The judge found Nolen competent to stand trial, but at that hearing, the defendant refused to reaffirm his guilty plea. Cleveland County District Attorney Greg Mashburn said that Nolen refused to even acknowledge the questions posed to him at that hearing, so the case had to go to trial.
Nolen's attorneys say they plan to use the insanity defense in Nolen's trial.
In July, Ellis County authorities asked the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to open an investigation into a Woodward police detective accused of child sexual abuse. After investigating for about a month, the OSBI arrested Detective Patrick Gandara, a 23-year veteran of law enforcement who was just promoted in May.
Now, the detective has been charged with two counts of sexual abuse of a child.
Reports say the charges come from separate incidents. Investigators allege the sexual abuse took place between September 2011 and March 2012 and between April 2012 and February 2013. Investigators accuse the detective of kissing and touching inappropriately a girl under the age of 12.
Oklahoma law prohibits and penalizes the abuse, neglect, exploitation, and sexual abuse of child in 21 O.S. § 843.5. This statute defines sex abuse as follows:
"[C]hild sexual abuse" means the willful or malicious sexual abuse, which includes but is not limited to rape, incest, and lewd or indecent acts or proposals, of a child under eighteen (18) years of age by another."
According to subsection E of this statute, "Any parent or other person who shall willfully or maliciously engage in child sexual abuse shall, upon conviction, be punished by imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections not exceeding life imprisonment."
However, state law enhances penalties for sexual abuse of a child under 12. Subsection F states that sexual abuse of a child under 12 is punishable by a minimum of 25 years to life in prison.
In all cases, child sexual abuse is a Level 3 sex offense requiring anyone convicted to register as a sex offender for life.
A Guthrie man is facing a litany of charges after reportedly duct-taping his wife's hands, beating her, and holding her against her will for hours.
Police say the incident began as a woman was driving her husband to work in the early morning hours of August 15. The woman, who was in the process of leaving her husband at the time, says the man shoved her out of the car, duct-taped her hands so that she could not use them, and began punching her.
She says he then drove her down back roads before stopping in Langston for gas. While there, he reportedly drove around the parking lot telling her that if she made a scene, he would have to "kill everyone there."
From there, the pair drove to a lake in Stillwater, where the man apparently realized the severity of what he had allegedly done. The woman says he told her it "was over, and he was just going to have to end it."
The woman says she tried to calm him down, telling him they could just go home and she would come up with an explanation for her bruises. She says he took her home, but held her hostage there, refusing to let her leave. Eventually, she says, he fell asleep and she was able to slip a note to her son, telling him that there was a loaded gun in the drawer and she couldn't leave.
The son notified police, who were able to enter the home while the man was still asleep to arrest him.
The man, who is not named in reports in order to protect the identity of his wife, is facing charges of kidnapping, domestic assault and battery, and rape. If ultimately charged and convicted, he faces serious penalties. Kidnapping is a felony punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison. Domestic assault and battery with intent to do bodily harm is a felony punishable by a maximum of 10 years in prison. First degree rape is punishable by a maximum of life in prison. Under Oklahoma law, spousal rape is an act of first degree rape when accomplished through the use of force or fear.
A Yukon man is jailed and facing serious charges after ramming police cars during a traffic stop.
Early Friday morning, police received a report of a vehicle driving erratically near Integris Canadian Valley Hospital. A Yukon police officer pulled over the suspect vehicle at approximately 1:45 a.m. The driver, identified as Laddie Louis Polasek, 55, stopped his vehicle upon seeing the police lights, but then threw his pickup into reverse, slamming into the police car behind him before driving away.
He then led police on a low-speed chase through Yukon before pulling over into a parking lot. When a police officer pulled in behind him, Polasek reportedly put his car in reverse again, and again slammed into the patrol car behind him.
An officer fired a shotgun at Polasek's vehicle, shattering glass, but leaving the suspect uninjured. Police were able to pull the suspect from his vehicle and place him under arrest.
Polasek was transported to the Canadian County jail on complaints of assault with a deadly weapon, attempting to elude police and running a road block.
The man's criminal history shows charges for threatening to perform an act of violence, trespassing after being forbidden, and assault on a police officer. All charges were ultimately dismissed, and Polasek's guardian sued on his behalf for wrongful arrest. That lawsuit was also dismissed.
Since then, a relative of Polasek was granted a protective order barring the man from contacting him or coming to his residence for at least five years.
The prior charges against Polasek were all misdemeanors. This time, it seems he could be in much bigger trouble. Assault with a deadly weapon is a felony. According to 21 O.S. 652, "Any person who commits any assault and battery upon another, including an unborn child . . . , by means of any deadly weapon, or by such other means or force as is likely to produce death, or in any manner attempts to kill another, including an unborn child . . . , or in resisting the execution of any legal process, shall upon conviction be guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment in the State Penitentiary not exceeding life."
The Canadian County District Attorney's Office has not yet filed charges against the suspect in this case.
At the conclusion of a preliminary hearing yesterday, Logan County Special District Judge Susan Worthington found there was sufficient evidence for Nathan LeForce to stand trial for the murder of a Logan County Sheriff's Deputy.
On April 18, Deputy David Wade went to the Guthrie home of John and Christine Lute to serve an eviction notice. Nearly as soon as he got out of his vehicle, LeForce, who was visiting the property, raised a gun and fired at the deputy, shooting him several times before fleeing in the deputy's pickup.
Deputy Wade was transported to OU Medical Center, where he died on the operating table.
LeForce, who stole a woman's car in Coyle after ditching the deputy's vehicle, was apprehended by law enforcement including the Oklahoma Highway Patrol a short time later.
At the preliminary hearing, John and Christine Lute testified that they had only met LeForce the day before, when he came to take a disabled pickup truck off the property. Lute says that LeForce took a black gun from his pants and placed it in a kitchen drawer and began helping the couple pack. The man remained on the property to wait for a ride since he could not drive the disabled pickup.
Lute testified that he went to bed, and when he woke up, LeForce was still on the property. As Lute was in a bedroom and his wife in the kitchen, Deputy Wade drove up to serve the eviction notice. John Lute says he heard shots fired and first thought the deputy had shot LeForce. When he went outside, he found the deputy injured.
Christine Lute says she watched LeForce drive away in the deputy's truck.
When asked about possible drug use, John Lute said that he was unsure whether or not LeForce used drugs the day of the shooting, but that he had used " between a quarter of a gram and a half of a gram of meth" the day before the shooting.
No motive has been given in the shooting, and LeForce was not the person being served the eviction notice. Prosecutors say they plan to seek the death penalty at LeForce's trial, which is scheduled to begin in November.
If you have a criminal record, you know first-hand how much something you did in the past can affect your present life and even your future. Even a misdemeanor conviction for a youthful mistake can make it difficult to get a job, secure a financial loan, gain admission to college, or find housing. Reading the question, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" on an employment application can make your heart sink, knowing that when all else is equal, your prospective employer is more likely to hire the person who can check "NO."
Fortunately, Oklahoma law provides a way for you to clear your record. In fact, it provides two ways, each with differing eligibility criteria and varying degrees of thoroughness.
The first way to get a record expunged in Oklahoma is for men and women who have been given a deferred sentence after pleading guilty to an offense. This is sometimes called a Section 991c expungement after the statute that describes it: 22 O.S. 991(c).
A deferred sentence occurs when a person pleads guilty to a charge, but the judge delays judgment and sentencing rather than accepting the guilty plea. The defendant is ordered to serve probation instead of being convicted and sent to jail or prison. If the defendant successfully completes probation without violating its terms or committing other criminal offenses, the guilty or no contest plea is expunged from the court record, and the case is dismissed.
According to Section 991(c), the procedure to expunge the deferred sentence follows:
1. All references to the name of the defendant shall be deleted from the docket sheet;
2. The public index of the filing of the charge shall be expunged by deletion, mark-out or obliteration;
3. Upon expungement, the court clerk shall keep a separate confidential index of case numbers and names of defendants which have been obliterated pursuant to the provisions of this section;
4. No information concerning the confidential file shall be revealed or released, except upon written order of a judge of the district court or upon written request by the named defendant to the court clerk for the purpose of updating the criminal history record of the defendant with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation; and
5. Defendants qualifying under Section 18 of this title may petition the court to have the filing of the indictment and the dismissal expunged from the public index and docket sheet. This section shall not be mutually exclusive of Section 18 of this title.
"Section 18" refers to the other type of expungement available in Oklahoma. This is sometimes called a Section 18 or a full expungement, because it clears even the arrest record from the OSBI background check, rather than simply striking one's deferred sentence from the court record. While a Section 18 expungement is more thorough in erasing the criminal record, it is also more difficult to obtain.
According to 22 O.S. 18, only the following people are eligible for full record expungement:
1. The person has been acquitted;
2. The conviction was reversed with instructions to dismiss by an appellate court of competent jurisdiction, or an appellate court of competent jurisdiction reversed the conviction and the prosecuting agency subsequently dismissed the charge;
3. The factual innocence of the person was established by the use of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) evidence subsequent to conviction, including a person who has been released from prison at the time innocence was established;
4. The person has received a full pardon on the basis of a written finding by the Governor of actual innocence for the crime for which the claimant was sentenced;
5. The person was arrested and no charges of any type, including charges for an offense different than that for which the person was originally arrested, are filed and the statute of limitations has expired or the prosecuting agency has declined to file charges;
6. The person was under eighteen (18) years of age at the time the offense was committed and the person has received a full pardon for the offense;
7. The person was charged with one or more misdemeanor or felony crimes, all charges have been dismissed, the person has never been convicted of a felony, no misdemeanor or felony charges are pending against the person, and the statute of limitations for refiling the charge or charges has expired or the prosecuting agency confirms that the charge or charges will not be refiled; provided, however, this category shall not apply to charges that have been dismissed following the completion of a deferred judgment or delayed sentence;
8. The person was charged with a misdemeanor, the charge was dismissed following the successful completion of a deferred judgment or delayed sentence, the person has never been convicted of a felony, no misdemeanor or felony charges are pending against the person, and at least one (1) year has passed since the charge was dismissed;
9. The person was charged with a nonviolent felony offense, not listed in Section 571 of Title 57 of the Oklahoma Statutes, the charge was dismissed following the successful completion of a deferred judgment or delayed sentence, the person has never been convicted of a felony, no misdemeanor or felony charges are pending against the person, and at least five (5) years have passed since the charge was dismissed;
10. The person was convicted of a misdemeanor offense, the person was sentenced to a fine of less than Five Hundred One Dollars ($501.00) without a term of imprisonment or a suspended sentence, the fine has been paid or satisfied by time served in lieu of the fine, the person has not been convicted of a felony, and no felony or misdemeanor charges are pending against the person;
11. The person was convicted of a misdemeanor offense, the person was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, a suspended sentence or a fine in an amount greater than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), the person has not been convicted of a felony, no felony or misdemeanor charges are pending against the person, and at least five (5) years have passed since the end of the last misdemeanor sentence;
12. The person was convicted of a nonviolent felony offense, not listed in Section 571 of Title 57 of the Oklahoma Statutes, the person has received a full pardon for the offense, the person has not been convicted of any other felony, the person has not been convicted of a separate misdemeanor in the last fifteen (15) years, no felony or misdemeanor charges are pending against the person, and at least ten (10) years have passed since the felony conviction;
13. The person was convicted of not more than two nonviolent felony offenses, not listed in Section 571 of Title 57 of the Oklahoma Statutes, the person has received a full pardon for both of the nonviolent felony offenses, no felony or misdemeanor charges are pending against the person, and at least twenty (20) years have passed since the last misdemeanor or felony conviction; or
14. The person has been charged or arrested or is the subject of an arrest warrant for a crime that was committed by another person who has appropriated or used the person's name or other identification without the person's consent or authorization.
If you believe you may be entitled to expungement of your criminal record under Oklahoma law, contact a criminal defense lawyer who can help you clear your record. Call attorney Ryan Coventon at (405) 417-3842.