For what it's worth, poor ol' Walt was just a fiddle player and like most of that ilk (;) was as full of $hit as a Christmas goose. He's a natural at the glad handing crap you have to do as a Little Dixie pol, but he never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. I think Gene Stipe quite obviously used Walt, befriended him, and got him in so far over his head that Walt was sunk before he even knew it.
As for Teflon, Gene Stipe makes Gotti look like a piker.
FWIW Stipe assistant routed funds, charges allege
2003-03-08
By Chris Casteel
The Oklahoman
WASHINGTON -- Oklahoma state Sen. Gene Stipe's personal assistant gave money to at least 20 people and asked them to contribute the money in their own names to Walt Roberts' congressional campaign in 1998, according to charges filed in federal court.
The charges accuse Charlene Spears of giving money to "straw contributors" that she had received from her boss and a person identified as a longtime friend of her boss. The charges detail contributions made to Roberts' campaign from 20 "straw contributors" who are not identified by name. The charges also allege Spears received $1,950 to donate to Roberts in her name.
Spears was charged late Thursday in U.S. District Court with one misdemeanor count of conspiracy in her role of funneling illegal contributions to Roberts' failed campaign and with one felony count of conspiracy on an accusation of lying about the true source of the money during a Federal Election Commission investigation.
Roberts pleaded guilty Wednesday to the same charges Spears faces. He is expected to cooperate with the ongoing federal investigation.
In the Roberts and Spears cases combined, prosecutors have identified more than $245,000 in illegal contributions to the 1998 campaign.
The fact that Spears, as Roberts, was charged by information -- rather than being indicted by the grand jury hearing evidence in the case -- indicates she also will enter into a plea agreement in the case.
Spears did not respond to a request for comment. Stipe has declined to comment on the case since November, when he told reporters he gave Roberts $67,500 "to buy me some cattle." He said then he didn't realize the money would wind up in the campaign.
As in the case against Roberts, Stipe, D-McAlester, was not identified by name.
Spears, a longtime employee of the Stipe Law Firm in McAlester, is described in the charges against her as the personal assistant to "C-1" and an employee of C-1's law firm. C-1 is described as a political mentor and friend to Roberts, a partner at a law firm in the 3rd Congressional District in 1998 and a state elected official. The other alleged conspirator, cited as C-2, is described as a longtime friend to C-1.
According to the charges, Spears twice told her boss during the FEC investigation that "they might as well tell the truth to the FEC."
Once, in 2000, he replied "that he could not tell the truth because he had to run for re-election that year."
According to the charges, Spears made false statements to the FEC in December 2000 and January 2001.
Stipe, long considered one of the most powerful legislators in Oklahoma, particularly in the southeastern part of the state, has served in the Legislature for more than 50 years. Stipe, 76, is serving his last two years in the Senate before term limits make him ineligible to run.
Stipe won his last race in 2000 without opposition.
Sources familiar with the grand jury investigation told The Oklahoman last year that prosecutors had focused on the role played by Stipe and Spears in Roberts' campaign.
Roberts was a former state House member from McAlester when he ran for Congress in 1998, winning the Democratic nomination but losing in the general election to then-incumbent Republican Rep. Wes Watkins.
During the campaign, a series of personal loans and contributions from Roberts raised questions from the media and his opponents about where he was getting such large sums of money. The Oklahoma congressional delegation filed a complaint against him in October 1998 alleging he was funneling illegal money into his campaign and filing false FEC reports.
Roberts, 40, whose last known address was in California, admitted to that Wednesday. He was released on his own recognizance and faces sentencing July 15.
The charges against Spears include some of the same illegal acts as were contained in Roberts' case -- including the cattle transaction that Roberts admitted was bogus. But some new ones were revealed.
According to the charges against Spears, she was given at least $40,000 from her boss and a longtime friend of her boss, and she then gave that money to others to make contributions.
The charges detail the contributions from 20 different straw contributors, not counting Spears herself, giving the amounts contributed, the dates on which they were contributed and the dates the contributions were reported to the FEC.
For instance, straw contributor No. 18 gave $950 on Aug. 14, 1998, $950 on Sept. 3, 1998, and $1,000 on Oct. 29, 1998. According to FEC reports filed by Roberts, attorney Mark Thetford, of the Stipe Law Firm office in Muskogee, gave those exact same amounts on those dates.
Reached Friday, Thetford said, "I'm not going to have any comment on that."
FEC regulations state that "No person shall -- (i) Make a contribution in the name of another; (ii) Knowingly permit his or her name to be used to effect that contribution; (iii) Knowingly help or assist any person in making a contribution in the name of another; or (iv) Knowingly accept a contribution made by one person in the name of another."
According to the charges, straw contributor No. 15 gave $950 on Aug. 14, 1998, $1,000 on Aug. 31, 1998, and $998 on Sept. 28, 1998. Barbara Thetford of Jenks gave those exact same amounts on those dates. She is the wife of John Thetford, an attorney with the Stipe Law Firm office in Tulsa.
Reached Friday, Barbara Thetford said: "I really don't know anything about that. I guess you'll just have to call somebody else. I'm sorry."
Straw contributor No. 2 gave $250 on May 22, 1998, $1,000 on Aug. 28, 1998, $550 on Aug. 28, 1998, and $1,000 on Oct. 22, 1998, according to the charges. FEC reports show Doyle Carper of Idabel gave those exact amounts on those dates.
Carper is the former Oklahoma deputy health commissioner who pleaded guilty in September to conspiring with four so-called "ghost" employees to defraud the state.
According to the charges, Spears arranged for the $67,500 to Roberts to buy media advertising; the check was allegedly from her boss' account. She is accused of lying to the FEC in a sworn deposition in 2000 and in a written statement a month later that the money was to buy cattle.
Spears also is accused of lying to the FEC in regards to proceeds from an "art auction" held by Roberts in September 1998 to raise money for his campaign. According to the charges, Spears falsely told the FEC that a check for $45,250 written by her boss (C-1) to his longtime friend (C-2) was not a reimbursement for purchases made by people at the auction.