Prosecutors provide safeguard against public corruption in OK
FORMER Rep. Gus Blackwell, who once served in a top leadership position in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, has become the latest in a long line of state politicians convicted of crimes. Blackwell’s guilty plea is a reminder of the important role Oklahoma prosecutors have played in rooting out government corruption.
Blackwell, a Republican, pleaded guilty to felony perjury, admitting to falsifying campaign reports in order to enrich himself at the taxpayers’ expense. He has been ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution to the state House and to spend five years on probation. He’s now considered a convicted felon.
(A civil case filed by the Oklahoma Ethics Commission against Blackwell, seeking at least $60,000 in penalties for violating ethics rules, is pending.)
Like many Oklahoma politicians accused of wrongdoing, Blackwell proclaimed his innocence and criticized prosecutors. When Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater filed the criminal case against Blackwell, Blackwell’s attorney said Prater had “singled out Gus Blackwell and has wrongly charged an innocent man. A charge is one thing. Proving the case is another. Starting today, Gus Blackwell gets his day in court where we will show this prosecutorial overreach is completely unjustified.” So much for that theory. The Blackwell case followed a longstanding formula in Oklahoma politics: corrupt politicians try to brazen out charges of wrongdoing —without success.
In 2011, a 63-count federal indictment was handed down against former Oklahoma Senate leader Mike Morgan, D-Stillwater. Morgan was accused of accepting $12,000 in bribes as a senator to influence legislation.
His attorney called the indictment politically motivated and predicted Morgan would be exonerated. During the trial, Morgan denied the charges, telling jurors, “I’m not going to risk everything I’ve worked for all my life.”
The jury didn’t buy it. In 2012, Morgan was convicted. He ultimately was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.
In 2010, when Former Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, was charged with a felony for offering a bribe to a state senator, he declared it to be “purely a political takeout maneuver without any factual or legal justification.”
“I am innocent, I’ve done nothing improper and I’m confident I will be exonerated,” Terrill said, adding that “the whole point of filing the charge is simply to damage me politically, and I seriously doubt there is even an expectation that it will succeed as a matter of law.”
The jury disagreed. Terrill was convicted of felony bribery in 2013.
There are many other examples. Unfortunately, Oklahoma has had more than its share of crooked politicians. Yet in all cases noted above, and others we don’t have room to recount, the politicians facing charges insisted prosecutors had a political vendetta. The prosecutors, to their credit, did most of their talking in the courtroom. The outcomes show that juries find prosecutors more convincing than defendants’ in-your-face denials.
There’s already enough waste and inefficiency in government without adding outright theft and bribery into the mix. For combating such crimes committed by officeholders, prosecutors —in this latest case, Prater and his staff — deserve taxpayers’ thanks.