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Posted on 06/27/2004 8:48:27 PM PDT by buffyt
Former workers say the accused judge's behavior worsened about four years ago.
The courtroom behavior of Creek County District Judge Donald Thompson - DEMOCRAT - took a disturbing turn about four years ago, three of his former employees claim.
"He's not the same person that he once was," said his former minutes clerk, Dianna Horath Strickland, who began working with the judge in 1983.
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Last week, Attorney General Drew Edmondson filed a petition with the Court on the Judiciary, seeking Thompson's removal from the bench for alleged improper sexual conduct during court proceedings.
Thompson is accused of using a penis pump while seated at the bench during nonjury and jury trials. Through his attorney, Thompson has denied the allegations.
Three of Thompson's former employees, who gave testimony in past months to the Council on Judicial Complaints, spoke Thursday to the Tulsa World.
"People say he's just kinky, but it's gone way past that," Strickland said of Thompson's behavior.
"After the investigation started, there were times when he stopped coming to work," said Strickland, who still works for the Creek County Court Clerk's Office.
"He wouldn't come to the courthouse. We couldn't find him. Nobody could find him. Our office had boxes of his unopened mail and piles of pleadings that attorneys were leaving to be signed," Strickland said. "It just got bizarre."
Thompson's court reporter, Lisa Foster, 40, believes she may have been the first person to detect Thompson using a penis pump during court sessions in the fall of 2000 after hearing air-pumping noises coming from somewhere near the bench.
Thompson, who was appointed to the bench in 1982, has admitted he had the device, but claims it was a gag gift that he never used.
After Foster first saw the device, she said she immediately told her husband and confided in another Creek County court reporter, who wanted her to tell someone.
But Foster had worked for the judge for 15 years. She said she was afraid no one would believe her over a powerful judge.
Foster said she thought maybe the behavior was just a "fluke" and the judge would stop. But after becoming sporadic, the behavior started to be more frequent.
Foster and her husband, Neal, weighed her options and decided to ignore the situation in hopes that the judge would retire as he had talked about. Foster worried if she reported the judge's behavior, her career would be over.
"What judge is going to want to hire me coming forth with these allegations with someone I've worked with for so many years?" she said.
Several Creek County officials who have known Foster for many years said she not only has integrity, but an incredible work ethic.
Creek County District Court Clerk Pat Creason said Foster has outstanding character.
"I've known Lisa since she started here. I trust her with whatever she says," Creason said.
The fear of getting fired also stopped Thompson's former secretary, Zelma Hindman, 57, from reporting it when she saw the device.
"My mouth dropped, and he nearly jumped over the bench," she said.
Hindman and Foster never spoke to each other about what they'd seen until after they were fired.
"Try sitting in my shoes at my age," Hindman said. "The way people look at you when you have to say, 'Yes, I was terminated with no reason given, and I'm under court order not to talk about it.' Would you hire someone like that?"
Foster said at first the judge only used the device when someone was testifying, "then he got careless and continued to use it during silent moments in the court proceedings. I knew other people were hearing it. He was so into it, his shoulder would move to the sound of the pump."
During trials, Foster sat to the side of the judge's raised bench. The steps to approach his chair were on the other side. When the judge used the device, Foster claims he angled his chair toward her, putting his back to the steps and clerks who sat several feet farther away. The position gave Foster a view of the judge's lap through a gap on the side of the bench, she said.
For two years, not only did Foster view the device and the judge's penis on numerous occasions, but at one point saw the judge shave his genitals, according to the attorney general's petition for his removal.
At one point, Foster said she took a picture of the device after she saw Thompson toss it under the bench.
Strickland had herself transferred from Thompson's courtroom in 2002 after deciding the working relationship had become too uncomfortable because he had allegedly made a vulgar sexual proposition to her.
Strickland said her husband had a cleaning service at the courthouse. One night when she was helping, he found the device under the judge's bench, she said.
Strickland said she also heard the pump at the clerk's table during a trial where she was substituting for the judge's minutes clerk.
The attorney general's petition states that a Sapulpa police officer also saw the device while testifying in Thompson's court and took a picture of it during a break in the proceedings.
According to a letter Thompson wrote to Foster, the judge claimed he learned in September that Sapulpa Police Chief Jim Wall had filed a complaint with the Council on Judicial Complaints.
The day after Foster testified to the Council on Judicial Complaints, Thompson fired her and then Hindman.
A few days later, Thompson contacted Foster, told her he was wrong to fire her and rehired her under the stipulation that she would be transferred to another judge.
Then Thompson's attorney, Clark Brewster, contacted Foster for an informal interview. She said he told her it was because the judge wouldn't talk about the allegations and he needed to know how to defend him.
"That is right. I didn't know how to defend him and needed facts," Brewster said.
Foster said Brewster also told her that he had gotten Thompson to hire her back.
Foster said when she attempted to record the meeting with Brewster, he talked her out of it.
Foster's husband, Neal, said Brewster was "very disarming."
Brewster said he suggested she not record the conversation because he wanted both sides to feel comfortable having an open conversation.
"I wasn't trying to manipulate anything," he said. "I don't feel comfortable about somebody recording conversations."
Foster said the first thing Brewster said to her and her husband was, "Before you say anything, my greatest fear is (Thompson) is going to kill himself."
Brewster said there are always two recollections of a conversation. He claims he told Foster that the general counsel of the Council on Judicial Complaints was concerned about the judge's health.
"The allegations have changed rather markedly from the time I was told by (the general counsel) what she said and the time that I was told by her what she saw, and from the (story) now that I am getting from the press. There is much difference."
Brewster said Foster's claims that he told her he believed her and would encourage the judge to do the right thing and step down are "not true."
After Foster's meeting with Brewster, Thompson reneged on the transfer and ultimately fired Foster.
IF he had been Repub. it would have been in all the articles. As it is, the very liberal left leaning Tulsa World doesn't mention that he is a DEMOCRAT!! These papers are so liberal. Their articles about Kerry are "Oh who will he choose as his VP?" Their articles about Bush/Cheney are ALL NEGATIVE. Sheesh I am glad I don't live here anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is a story from my home town.... Just Damn.
Is there such a thing as PROPER sexual conduct during court proceedings?
I'll start this time with the appropriate:
EEEEEeeeeeeeeeWWWWWWwwwwwww!!!!
OMG! Still reading........
No he wouldn't. He obviously had to pump more air into his head. He is a Democrat.
| Ouster attempt advances BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau, 06/26/2004 Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A1 of News approx. 993 words
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| AG aims to oust judge BARBARA HOBEROCK World Capitol Bureau AND P.J. LASSEK World Staff Writer, 06/25/2004 Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page A1 of News approx. 1657 words
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| Attorney General seeks judge's removal World capitol bureau, 06/24/2004 www.tulsaworld.com ( Edition), Page of BreakingNews approx. 410 words OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson is seeking the ouster Creek County District Judge Donald D. Thompson for alleged improper sexual conduct during court proceedings. |
Some Democrat like Carville would say, "Drag a $100 bill through a courtroom and look at what kind of a court clerk you get."
And the judge could pull a Clinton and decide her charges were just about sex and not sexual harrassment and just lie to fix her case.
That's ALL just OK if you are a Democrat official, where women are just doormats for Democrat men to wipe their feet on.
Think about this statement...LOL...I've heard that's where males store their brains, anyhow....
Hey, This IS Oklahoma after all. Not that far from Bubba Clinton's Arkansas. LOL But honestly, you had a great point! I guess what Clinton did in the Oral Office was proper behavior according to Democraps?? One man said if he were chosen to become the new judge, he would insist on a NEW ROBE!! LOL
There are about 16 witnesses, WHY DID THIS TAKE SO LONG???? and one of them was a cop with a camera who took PHOTOS! THANK GOODNESS!!!!! Powerful judge my arse, this guy is a jerk and always was a jerk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now he is a JERK OFF too.
If ever there was a story belonging on the Just Dang list...
I give up. What the hell is a penis pump? I must have led a sheltered life.
Judge Thompson and Slick Willy certainly did. (Double meaning was also intended despite my membership in the denser sex.)
My mother and I wanted to know what a penis pump is, we had never heard of one before the Judge Don Thompson case. We found photos of them at http://store.sextoys.sex-superstore.com/cgi-bin/toys.cgi?af=0&text=&init=pump&criteria=&fam=&last=1407&dozen=3&letter=&last_list=&first_list=&dozen_list=1&init1=
Hey, I was just teasing. I just got tickled when I read that. Couldn't help myself.
I have known a lot of people that have gotten "properly" screwed during court proceedings.
He probably thought it was an invitation.
have the 'Austin Powers' look?
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