Monday, August 29, 2016

Senate Pro Temp, Finis Smith Goes To Prison For Fraud


 Senate President, Finis Smith, of West Tulsa, was caught with an unreported foreign bank account which he's not reported on his taxes. He and his wife both were sentenced to prison. They owned a Tag Agency. He was disbarred from his law practice.

  The Tulsa World said;
1985
  Former Oklahoma Senate  president pro-tem Finis Smith, along with his wife Doris,  were convicted by a federal court jury here on felony counts  of mail and tax fraud, conspiracy and failure to disclose foreign bank accounts. Finis and Doris Smith, each got six years, and were sent to a federal prison in Texas.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Speaker, Dan Draper, Convicted Of Election Fraud, In 1983

  The Oklahoma Speaker, Dan Draper, was convicted in 1983 for election tampering. He was trying to help his father win a seat in the Oklahoma legislature.

  The Tulsa World reported;
1983
  Then-House Speaker Dan Draper's troubles began in 1983.  He and House Majority Floor Leader Joe Fitzgibbon initially  were convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy charges for  allegedly fixing absentee ballots to help Draper's father  in an unsuccessful race for a House seat. Draper and Fitzgibbon  later won new trials (in 1985), but a federal judge dismissed  the charges at the behest of U.S. Attorney Roger Hilfiger.  Muskogee Democrat Jim Barker became the new speaker thanks  to Draper's troubles.
 Draper was further convicted in 1984. the Tulsa World said;
  Dan Draper ended up in more trouble. He was arrested in February when a police officer found him slumped over the wheel of his car. He pleaded no contest to actual physical control while intoxicated, a charge later amended to a lesser offense after a year of probation. 

Monday, August 15, 2016

The Oklahoma County Commissioner Scandal


 
Bill Price prosecuted most of the County Commissioners
  When Republican President, Ronald Reagan started appointing conservative federal prosecutors and judges, The Democrats who ran Oklahoma began to sweat. Eventually, the IRS notified the Justice Department about fake billing invoices to county commissioners. Bill Price was one such federal prosecutor. After he sent scores of county commissioners to jail, he ran for governor. Sadly he lost, due to more corruption in David Walter's campaign funding.
   Harry Holloway, of the Oklahoma Historical Society said;
 In 1980 a huge scandal erupted stemming from the conviction of some 220 county commissioners and suppliers. Their convictions rose from involvement in a scheme of kickbacks paid on orders for county road-building supplies such as timber and gravel. The scandal reached all across the state in roughly sixty counties large and small, urban and rural. It had been going on for as long as anyone could remember. Again, federal officials rooted out the corruption.

Monday, August 8, 2016

Oklahoma Governor Goes To Prison

David Hall
David Hall passed away this Spring. He has been living quietly since he left public life on his way to prison.
After the terrible governorships of the late 20s & early 30's, it wasn't  until the 1960s that major scandals again surfaced, and then they did so with a vengeance. Three justices of the Oklahoma Supreme Court were removed from office by impeachment or resignation arising from IRS investigations of reports that justices were taking kickbacks for favorable decisions. A powerful former speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, who had been a dominant figure in state government, was convicted and sent to jail as a result of IRS investigations arising from charges that he failed to report income received in return for political favors. Then in 1975 a former governor, David Hall, was convicted, shortly after leaving office, of misusing his powers of office by trying to direct a state retirement fund to help a friend with a loan. Again, federal officials were the chief agents in cleaning up the corruption.
 Harry Holloway, of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Monday, August 1, 2016

The Impeachment and Imprisonment Of 3 Oklahoma Supreme Court Justices


 
  Fifty years ago, Oklahomans were humiliated by revelations that three state Supreme Court justices had accepted bribes. Former Justices N.S. Corn, Earl Welch and N.B. Johnson served jail time for their criminal actions.

Judicial Scandal
In 1965, scandal burst forth in an unusual setting, the Oklahoma Supreme Court.  Three judges were implicated in taking payoffs to decide cases before the court. These three judges were either convicted in court or impeached. IRS inquiries laid much of the groundwork.
One of the guilty judges, N.S. Corn, became contrite and publicly described his misbehavior. He admitted that over about 20 years of taking payoff, he could not recall one single year in which he had not taken a payoff. Professor Phillip M. Simpson of Cameron University has researched one spectacular payoff case in which "Corn . swore that he had received $150,000 in $100 bills ... in a downtown Oklahoma City
meeting .... The attorney wuo had established the pattern with Corn was O.A. Cargill, former Oklahoma City mayor and Corn's friend for 50 years." This corruption obviously reached into the highest levels and included citizens usually deemed quite respectable.