Ex-missionary’s lawyer files disciplinary letter in appeal effort

The lead federal prosecutor in a high-profile sex crimes case faced disciplinary action after an internal investigation found intolerable, unacceptable and “extremely serious” misconduct.

Don Gifford, now 47, was accused of serving his personal interests “rather than the interests of the federal government.”

Many of the accusations involve — indirectly — the high-profile case against a former missionary from Edmond.

“Management has lost all confidence in your ability to act in the best interest of the United States,” U.S. Attorney Mark Yancey wrote in a Sept. 12, 2016, letter. “There is no penalty other than removal that would suffice to deter such behavior in the future.”

Gifford left the U.S. attorney’s office shortly afterward and is now in private practice in Oklahoma City.

“I was not fired. I left voluntarily,” he said Tuesday. “I received a great job offer.”

Gifford was the lead prosecutor at the 2015 high-profile trial of Matthew Lane Durham. The former missionary was convicted of sex crimes against children at an orphanage in Africa. He is serving 40 years

in prison.

Durham is challenging his conviction at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

He is claiming he was wrongly convicted because of prosecutor misconduct and other grounds.

His defense attorney, Stephen Jones, on Tuesday filed a redacted version of Gifford’s disciplinary letter at the appeals court. The defense attorney wrote he was sent the letter unsolicited last week. Jones is asking the appeals court to hold off on issuing an opinion so he can evaluate what to do with the newly learned information.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Gifford did not contest that the letter is genuine but said “the allegations in it are untrue and misleading.”

“Basically, it went nowhere. I voluntarily resigned,” he said.

A key accusation against Gifford is that he “ghost-wrote” bar complaints against the defense attorney, Jones, and lied about it when confronted by his bosses.

A bar complaint is a grievance made to the state attorneys’ association and can result in discipline from the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

Gifford had a crucial witness in the Durham case file one of the complaints for him, according to the discharge letter. Another was filed anonymously.

“I am appalled at your utter lack of responsibility and professionalism you have displayed,” the U.S. attorney wrote. “By drafting, preparing, editing, assembling exhibits and/or enlisting the cooperation of others in the bar complaints, you sought to achieve by circumvention what you could not directly accomplish.”

The U.S. attorney further wrote Gifford had undermined the important principle that an assistant U.S. attorney may not determine on his own when to pursue misconduct allegations against a defense attorney “for conduct in litigation against the United States.”

Other accusations arise from his admitted affair after the trial with a TV reporter covering the case. Both were married at the time the affair began.

Gifford was accused in the discharge letter of repeatedly leaking sensitive information to the reporter.

He also is accused of seeking to have her now ex-husband investigated by the IRS and the state’s multicounty grand jury.

Once, in 2015, the reporter emailed Gifford to find out if Barack Obama, then president, was going to stop at the Oklahoma City National Memorial during a trip to the state, according to the discharge letter. Gifford responded, “I’m asking.”

The U.S. attorney pointed out in the discharge letter that the office had defended Gifford’s conduct to the judge in the Durham case when questions arose about the relationship with the reporter.

The U.S. attorney wrote he could not express “how shocked, disappointed, dismayed and embarrassed” he was to learn that Gifford had engaged in numerous unprofessional and inappropriate communications with the reporter about matters pending within the office in the months before that.

In his legal motion for a stay in the appeal, Jones wrote that the letter clearly demonstrates that Gifford is “an emotionally unstable individual” who “would stop at nothing to avenge his alleged grievances.”