Woman recognizes attacker's voice in threatening messages

NORMAN — A woman who reported being raped June 27 said she recognized her attacker's voice when she listened to threatening messages left on the phone of her nextdoor neighbor, who at the time was a Norman City Council member.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation is looking into the rape at the request of the Norman Police Department. At issue is whether the attack was meant for Alex Scott, a former council member and current Senate candidate.

The woman told an OSBI investigator that an unknown male gained access to her residence and physically and sexually assaulted her, according to a search warrant affidavit. She said the man approached her from behind, shoved her against a wall and stated "maybe next time you'll learn your lesson, b----," the investigator reported.

She told the investigator the man threw her to the ground and assaulted her.

The woman said Scott visited her after the incident, told her she believed she was the intended target of the assault and shared threatening voice mail messages left on her phone, according to the affidavit.

In two of the three voice mail messages, the woman "believed she recognized the voice of themessage's sender as that of the unknown male subject by whom (she) was assaulted on June 27,2020, the investigator wrote.

In one of the messages, the woman told the investigator she recalled that the content included something about "being a dumb( expletive) for trying to burn the flag in Tulsa," according to the affidavit. Another message inquired about what Scott planned to do with the flag "once she got it down from the flag pole."

The woman said hearing the voice gave her "chills" and she immediately asked Scott to "turn it off ," the investigator reported.

Scott, 26, was arrested last month in Tulsa on a complaint of obstructing police outside t he BOK Center, the site of a campaign rally for President Donald Trump. Tulsa police reported that Scott attached herself to a flagpole with" climbing/ rigging equipment" and "refused" to come down.

Investigators seized Scott' s phone and recovered call logs, text messages, audio files and voice messages before giving it back to Scott, according to a search warrant return filed Thursday in Cleveland County District Court.

Scott has been critical of police and voted last month to cut $ 865,000 from the police department budget. She also proposed a separate amendment that would have cut $4.5 million in salary and benefits from the police budget and eliminate 64 positions. It did not pass. Her council term expired July 7.

OSBI took over over the investigation after allegations surfaced that two Norman officers may have publicly shared Scott's address. An internal review of the officers is ongoing, Norman Police Department spokeswoman Sarah Jensen told The Oklahoman on Friday.

"At this time, there is no indication they utilized their employment to access any information," Jensen said. "The items we have been made aware of involve the re-sharing of publicly available records obtained via Oklahoma open record laws.