April 25th 2019 Special Edition NewsletterRepresentatives Chris Kannady & Kevin McDugle Accused of Sexual Battery & Sexual Harassment?
If the Woman Felt Trapped During the Ordeal, Will that be a Critical Factor in the Number of Possible Potential Felonies Filed?
We wrote of this incident back on October 7th 2018 in our newsletter and wondered out loud how House leadership would react to two or more of their own being caught up in a sexual abuse/harassment scandal. At the time we couldn't run the story, the victim was terrified out of her wits and the leadership wasn't in a place that we could be sure of have a real shot at getting the two most responsible men expelled from the Republican Caucus much less expelled from the House of Representatives. Then there were two other House Members present, both with the moral obligation as well as the contractual obligation to stop sexual harassment and to report that that it occurred. When was the time to deal with them?
First, what exactly is sexual battery. From the Oklahoma Statutes Title 21:
Sexual Battery:
“ B. No person shall commit sexual battery on any other person. "Sexual battery" shall mean the intentional touching, mauling or feeling of the body or private parts of any person sixteen (16) years of age or older, in a lewd and lascivious manner and without the consent of that person ….”Any person convicted of a violation of subsection B of this section shall be deemed guilty of a felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not more than ten (10) years.
How serious is sexual battery? A conviction of Sexual Battery will also result in the person being required to register as a sex offender with the Oklahoma Sex Offender Registry- and stay registered for the rest of their lives.
Oklahoma categorizes sex offenders according to an offense-based risk-level assessment.
- Level 1 sex offenses mandate sex offender registration for 15 years,
- Level 2 for 25 years, and
- Level 3 register for life.
Sexual battery is a level 3 sex offense. A quick grope in a dark restaurant is classified along with rape, child sexual abuse, and habitual sex offenders.
Why run the story now? Because we now have a good chance of protecting the victim and getting justice done. House leadership is at a crisis point, is it appropriate for acts of immoral and ill repute being done by his lieutenants and is it going to be unpunished? We have also been able to arrange security for the victim, and a lawyer has been lined up to advise the victim and see that her best interests are protected. Keep in mind that the main perpetrators fashion themselves extremely powerful, with a reputation for bullying and intimidation, indeed they pride themselves on that.. With that said, hold on for one hell of a disgusting story.
We are withholding the name of the victim from public disclosure at this time in the hope that justice can be done without subjecting her and her family to harassment and harm. We will welcome law enforcement reaching out to us so we can get the sensitive information into the right hands safely.
And always remember, the Sooner Tea Party is on a very limited budget for investigation and verification, some things we know are facts, other things we know as allegations albeit given in a taped interview by a credible source..... with that said, this is going to be a fluid story as the details are unraveled and what is considered “fact” now might surprise us next week so consider that everything is allegation and the presumption of innocence is deserved by all parties.
Outrage and Humiliation on the Menu....
An official event had been held at a location that hosts a lot of the Capitol events. As is normal, a clique of House members had split off as the event wound down. The young victim found herself accompanied by four older male colleagues. These men were; an older very highly placed member of House leadership, a junior leader of House leadership, and Representatives Chris Kannady and Kevin McDugle. They gathered at Nic's Diner and Lounge, a popular downtown OKC restaurant near Automobile Alley.
The victim, a young recently elected House member, indicated that she wound up sitting with Rep. Chris Kannady on one side and Rep. Kevin McDugle on the other. The victim reported that:
“Kevin McDugle whipped out his phone and started showing me some p*rn videos, which after what came out makes me believe that even more because I know who he is.”
The victim was referring to part of an earlier conversation during the interview about Kevin McDugle's divorce trial and the accusations and admissions that came out including McDugle's admission on the witness stand that he was a sex addict that was “pure” 95% of the time, which works out to 1.2 hours per day or 1.5 days per month of “other than pure”, AKA sex addiction activities. .
Next, the victim found that Chris Kannaday, Chairman of the House Judiciary committee, was touching or fondling her leg, in her own words:
“And, Kannady inappropriately touched my leg under the table.”
What does that mean exactly and was it accidental? Keep in mind that asking such delicate questions of a woman that had been sexually harassed and sexually battered is not fun, it is uncomfortable to say the least. Here is the transcript of the taped interview:
STP Interviewer: “Let me play devil's advocate, was it just an accidental brush or was ….he... being a guy?”
Victim: “No!”
STP Interviewer: “Okay”
Victim: “No, I went home and cried about it to my husband. “
Now it isn't our job to prosecute, we don't need to press for the intimate and humiliating details and harm this poor woman further so with the basic accusations determined, we were convinced that perhaps felony crimes had occurred, perhaps plural as shoving a p*rn video in the face of a married co worker might well also count as a sexual battery, or it could almost certainly be considered as being an accomplice to the sexual battery if the victim felt trapped and unable to flee. Perhaps two felony Sexual Battery charges might be in order?
And no, we didn't ask what kind of video, any p*rn video shown without warning or permission to a married woman is going to be an obvious assault and humiliating but the victim volunteered on her own to fill in a bit of the blanks:
Victim: “I can tell you the specific video he pulled up, I can remember it that well because it was that shocking.”
In the series of newsletters covering the Rep. Kevin McDugle divorce hearing multiple accusations were told ranging from p*rn addiction, to a fixation on *nal sex, to accusation of homosexuality, so that gives us a bit of a window on what possibly might have been the subject matter of the p*rn video. You can find the archive of past newsletters here at this link and scroll down to that time frame in 2018 to read the three or four newsletters with all the gory details of the McDugle saga.
When asked if Rep. Kevin McDugle had ever acted like this before, the victim said no, that McDugle had a reputation for doing such things but he hadn't shown that to her prior to that night. After all, they were work colleagues, a clique that would naturally meet and foster camaraderie after an event. Perhaps it was the older men's alleged alcohol consumption at the earlier event, but you know what they say, booze doesn't magnify a man's faults, it reveals the man's faults.
The two other leadership lieutenants, one a much older man that chairs a very critical House Committee, the other a junior leader in the leadership team, have not been contacted yet so we are withholding their names for a follow up story. They will have some explaining to do.
Is this to be expected out of high ranking Republicans? Leadership's actions in the coming week might well answer that question.
Finally, at one point last year Representative Chris Kannady proudly bragged of cutting conservative Republicans out of the Party, calling them a cancer upon the Republican Party.
In this case, the correct analogy would be, if justice is served, political venereally infected House “members” would be cut off or out of the Party.
Yeah, we knew we had to behave on this story so that is the extent of STP snark for this newsletter. You owe us now....
