All charges over deadly prison riot dismissed

STILLWATER — All charges over the deadliest prison fight in Oklahoma history have been dismissed because the evidence turned out to be insufficient.

Four inmates died from stab wounds suffered on Sept. 12, 2015, during the gang fight at the private prison in Cushing.

Prosecutors last year filed riot charges against seven felons who were at the Cimarron Correctional Facility that day. All seven were identified as being with the Irish Mob, a whites-only prison gang.

The key evidence in all the cases was a low-quality video surveillance recording.

A judge on April 18 dismissed the first riot case, against burglar Phillip Wayne Jordan Jr., 34, because of insufficient evidence. Jordan’s defense attorney asked for the dismissal, arguing that there had not been testimony at the preliminary hearing “that the accused did anything to injure any of the four individuals.”

The same judge and another judge then dismissed the rest of the riot cases — against Johnathan Richard Whittington, 28; Steven Ray Thompson, 32; James Augustine Placker, 31; Jordan James Scott, 26; Gage Broom, 26; and Korey L. Kruta, 29.

Payne County District Attorney Laura Austin Thomas asked for those dismissals “due to insufficient evidence.”

“At the time of the filing of the charges, the investigative report confirmed each defendant could be identified as a participant in the riot by employees of the correctional facility,” the prosecutor told the judges in dismissal motions.

“Some defendants have had preliminary hearings at which the ability of employee/witnesses to identify individuals became questionable at best,” she wrote. “Each of the riot cases stands on the same evidence as the other.”

The DA also disclosed that a critical witness, a guard, had been charged with bringing contraband into the prison.

The witness, Terrance A. Lockett, now 54, was the only correctional officer to see the fight start.

Lockett was fired in February 2016 for bringing marijuana into the prison for inmates. He later pleaded guilty to the felony offense and is on probation for six years.

Further damaging his credibility as a witness was that he has been diagnosed as mentally ill.

“Recently his symptoms have become much worse including auditory hallucinations and suicidal thoughts,” a St. Louis, Missouri, psychiatrist reported in February.

The fight pitted the Irish Mob against a rival white supremacist gang known as the Universal Aryan Brotherhood, the United Aryan Brotherhood or simply UAB, according to an investigation.

The gang members armed themselves with weapons made from broken light fixtures.

Killed were two members of each gang. The DA said last year murder charges could not be filed because no inmates were willing to testify to anything.

With the Irish Mob were victims Kyle Tiffee, 23, and Christopher Tignor, 29, the prosecutor said. With the UAB were Anthony Fulwider, 31, and Michael Edwin Mayden Jr., 26, the prosecutor said.

Still pending is a lawsuit, over two of the deaths, filed against the Tennessee-based company that runs the private prison and others across the country. The company is now called CoreCivic.