Former Wagoner sheriff in court for removal-from-office case

Former Wagoner County Sheriff Bob Colbert will stand trial on bribery charges after an Okmulgee County judge denied a motion that the charges be dropped.

Colbert appeared before District Judge Kenneth Adair on Thursday, four months after a preliminary hearing in which Sequoyah County Special Judge Matt Orendorff determined there was sufficient evidence to order him to trial on claims that he and former Sheriff’s Capt. Jeff Gragg received a bribe and conspired to receive a bribe in December 2014.

The charges stem from an accusation that Colbert and Gragg released two people who were under arrest in exchange for their turning over $10,000 that was seized during a December 2014 traffic stop.

Orendorff dismissed an extortion charge against Colbert on Aug. 5, saying the money was seized legally because there was cause to believe the money was drug proceeds.

Torell Wallace, the subject of the bribery charges, testified Aug. 3 that Colbert told him he would be released from the Wagoner County jail if he signed paperwork relinquishing his rights to the money Gragg obtained from his vehicle.

Wallace is in federal custody on an unrelated charge. Gragg pleaded guilty earlier this year to a reduced charge of willfully neglecting to perform his duty.

Colbert’s defense team had filed the motion to drop the charges on the grounds that the state did not show evidence for probable cause to pursue the charges.

Adair told the court Thursday that the hearing would be to determine whether the state had presented sufficient evidence to show Colbert had consciousness of guilt and corrupt intent concerning the bribery charges. He said it was not to determine the truthfulness of the evidence, which would be up to a jury.

Thomas Mortonsen, one of Colbert’s defense attorneys, said because the money was seized legally, he did not know what, if anything, Colbert had done wrong. He claimed Gragg was more directly involved with the initiation of the asset seizure, not Colbert.

Adair said the state presented evidence that Colbert had deleted or not entered records of the arrest in an attempt to suppress the incident.

Mortonsen told the judge that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation had determined no such records had been deleted. Assistant Attorney General Megan Tilly clarified that the state’s evidence showed that an attempt to hide the records had been made.