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| Wagoner County Sheriff Chris Elliot |
Sheriff Chris Elliot's Office Weaponized
Bitter Woman, Sheriff, and D.A. Office Team up to Railroad a Man
Fake Arrest Warrants Lead to
Innocent Man's Arrest at Church
D.A. Error in 2016 Leads to Innocent Man
Fighting to Stay out of Prison
Two Involved in all of this Were Alleged
to Have Molested Children
Which Two?
Last week we started the Wagoner County corruption case, outlining that Wagoner County Commissioner James Hanning had allegedly been exposed embezzling from a business partner and appears to have chosen to deal with it by railroading his business partner into state prison. We wanted the first part of the story to clearly outline that embezzlement most likely occurred and that the judge had restricted discovery in the case, enormously so, outrageously so, and not clutter the story up with other aspects of the case. Now we have to discuss Tyler Paulsen and learn why he was vulnerable to being sent to prison
And there is no nice way to say it, Paulsen was a drunk. He was busted a couple of times with DUI, he had a drunk's love life, a very dysfunctional woman was in his life at one point and the combination of alcoholism and a crazy woman got him arrested in June of 2016. The charges are grim, kidnapping, domestic A&B by strangulation, and assault with a dangerous weapon. Sounds bad, eh? Sounds like he ought to be one of our soft on crime stories? Actually, no. Read on dear reader, read on.
What actually happened was this crazy woman and Paulsen had a child together but neither was living with Paulsen. The apartment pool was down for maintenance, and loony girl wanted to bring their daughter over to swim in Paulsen's backyard pool. She wanted more than that and that led to an argument, she refuses to leave, and Paulsen dragged her out of the house, he was still a drunk at this time and was drinking heavily that day. A kind heart ed guy because he agreed she could come back inside “to get her things”, at which point he passed out plastered. Loony girl slipped a couple of pills in his mouth to keep him down and allegedly looted the home.... You can't make this stuff up.
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| Wagoner County D.A. Jack Thorpe |
Next day Paulsen awakes to a police bullhorn, SWAT is outside and demanding his surrender for the three charges that had been filed that morning. And he was portrayed by a vindictive woman into a dangerous criminal.
Two months later, Paulsen was awarded custody of the child. What does that tell you about both the woman and Paulsen? She was on her way down, he was on his way up. It also woke Paulsen up, he has been sober ever since and began going to church. The legal case was down to one charge, Domestic A & B, everything deferred, the finding of guilt was withheld, and $750.00 in fines plus costs along with supervision by the D.A. for five years. Another point is the five protective orders the loony woman had filed, five of them, and all five had been dismissed. No merit, as we see so many times the woman was using the legal system against someone, the guy might have been a drunk at the time but he was not mistreating her or the child.
So within a few days of Paulsen learning about his partner allegedly embezzling from their company, it appears that Commissioner James Hanning has found a tactic he could use. First sue the victim that he was supposedly embezzling from, then see if some charges can be trumped up to get him sent to prison. Hanning did just that, in September of 2017 he files suit against Paulsen to seize control of the company that he had put a fraction of the assets into.
Now below is the document that Paulsen signed when he accepted the plea deal that included the finding of guilt withheld. Not a word about firearms or other weapons. Zero, zilch, nada. In fact one of the reasons that Paulsen took the deal was that he could settle things and keep his right to hunt. Paulsen did carry a Glock, usually unloaded, with the magazine kept apart from the gun in his car as they dealt with thousands of dollars in cash each month. Few even knew he carried a gun, but Commissioner James Hanning did....we know he called in December of 2017 trying to report Paulsen and stating what kind of gun it was.
A few weeks after Commissioner Hanning sued Paulsen screwed up. Speeding through a small town, Adair Oklahoma. Cop was sitting at a convenience store running his radar and flips on his lights when he sees Paulsen doing 56 in a 45 zone. Paulsen brakes, pulls into the far end of the parking lot to get his ticket. Informs the cop that he has an unloaded gun in the car and the cop asks for the gun for his safety. While running the license the cop realizes that the license is literally two days expired but this being a small town Paulsen is arrested for speeding, and driving under an expired license. Paulsen showed the cop the interlock on his car, explained that he had forgotten to renew his license, but ticket revenue is king in these small towns.
And who comes to bail Paulsen out? Loony woman.....the local “judge” has the plastic tables folded up and out of the way so she can conduct the hearing, Paulsen pays a bit of bail, and leaves with the car and loony woman. Adair kept the gun till Paulsen proved he owned it, which is another problem itself. And the City of Adair isn't a reporting court, no one knows about his brush with the law on the expired license except the cop, the judge, loony woman, and Paulsen.
Things accelerate in December. First Commissioner Hanning files an FED, forced entry and detainer, to kick Paulsen out of a home he had been renting, from his own company! In the process Commissioner Hanning has the cops come with him and breaks into Hanning's house and allegedly searches around claiming the home might be damaged, water left running or some such nonsense. And a week later loony girl wonks out and turns on Paulsen. Imagine that, banging crazy chicks might cause problems.
Loony sends a threatening text, going to ruin Paulsen, take away everything including his daughter, and she now has a partner to accomplish exactly that, Commissioner James Hanning. Below is July 9th 2019 testimony in Wagoner County District Court. Right before this the judge is chewing out the loony woman for not being responsive to simple questions that she didn't want to answer.
The person asking the questions is Paulsen's attorney (Q), the person answering the question is the Loony (A).
And further down in this 150 page transcript:
As you can see, Loony is directly threatening Paulsen, threatening to join with Commissioner James Hanning to destroy Paulsen and get him sent to prison. The last screen shot ends with Loony naming “James” as Paulsen's business partner, Commissioner James Hanning. The court hearing transcript is a gold mine for this story, Loony has to admit that she talked to Commissioner Hanning on several occasions, once for 101 minutes and more text threats are admitted to have been made. Worse, further down in the transcript Loony has to explain why Commissioner James Hanning's brother Aaron Hanning is coming in to testify against Paulsen in court. Aaron Hanning is a busy boy.
BTW, the part about helping Chris be proven not to represent? Last week we wrote about Commissioner James Hanning's attorney trying to get Paulsen's attorney fired or kicked out of the courtroom. That was in reference to that. Because the guy dared to represent Paulsen.....
At this point the Wagoner County Sheriff's office has been weaponized against Paulsen in his custody battle, with a couple of employees interfering in the custody hearings, called in by Loony to attest to just what a dirt bag Paulsen is. He was arrested with a gun!!!!! With no mention that Loony bailed him out hours later....The Wagoner Police Department were used as well, first the invasion of his home on false pretenses that he was damaging the home, next calls were made about suspicious cars being at the house despite Commissioner Hanning and all the minions knowing they were either Loony's or Paulsen's cars.
But the best was to come, in April of 2018. The City of Adair dismisses the two charges against Paulsen, forfeits his bond of $545.00 to cover their trouble of arresting him and impounding his car, of course Paulsen had already long since paid the wrecker company. Good news, eh?
Nope, the arresting officer at Adair, the assistant chief, writes a probable cause affidavit on the case and asks Mayes County District Court to charge Paulsen with the two crimes PLUS being a DOC supervised parolee caught with a weapon. Gun charges, as if he was a convicted felon caught with a weapon. The new charges were filed the same day that the City of Adair dismissed their two charges.
Now this was seven months after the initial arrest in the City of Adair. The arresting officer, Nathan Godard, had written a three paragraph probable cause affidavit and signed it on October 2nd when he had arrested Paulsen. And now seven months later, Officer Godard adds a paragraph to what he had written seven month's earlier, the final paragraph stated that Godard had checked with Wagoner County and was notified that Paulsen wasn't supposed to have a gun as he was on probation. Remember that the officer, the judge, Paulsen, and Loony knew he had the arrest, no one else other than the wrecker driver. Why would officer Godard create an entirely new document, exact, word for word, and add a fourth paragraph seven months later? Because allegedly Loony had gotten with Commissioner James Hanning and hatched a plot to get her daughter back and Hanning off the hook for embezzlement.
Here is the new 4th paragraph, added seven months after the first three paragraphs were written and not notarized until the new paragraph had been added:
Now the charges read:
1. POSSESSION OF FIREARM WHILE ON SUPERVISION
2. DRIVING WITH LICENSE CANCELLED / SUSPENDED / REVOKED
3.SPEEDING - POSTED ZONE
An arrest warrant is issued seven months after Paulsen had been arrested and paid the $545.00 in bond that was forfeited after ADAIR dismissed the charges. Not that Paulsen didn't show up, they just took his bond for payment of the speeding and expired license ticket fine, which is how it is usually done with most traffic tickets. Seven months later, with the same charges beefed up, Paulsen has to bond out again on $10,000 bond and hire another lawyer.
July 26th 2018 rolls around and neither Paulsen nor his attorney are present, but the attorney had filed a motion the day before asking to reset the hearing due to a scheduling conflict he had and the prosecutor had agreed to the continuance. That is as common as mud in Arkansas and almost always granted, but not this time. The judge did continue the hearing till September 23rd as he had the motion from Paulsen's attorney stating the scheduling conflict but in the notes is this “THE COURT WILL TAKE
A BENCH WARRANT UNDER ADVISEMENT UNTIL THE ABOVE DATE. DEFENDANT IS ALLOWED TO REMAIN FREE ON CURRENT BOND.”
We have to stop in this narrative of the gun charges because Commissioner James Hanning appears to have found another way to weaponize the Wagoner County Sheriff office against Paulsen. Have him arrested the day before the July 26th hearing on false charges.
Paulsen had found religion at this point and was on the road to whipping his alcohol addiction. He was attending a church service in Eufaula Oklahoma with a woman and his daughter. Unknown to Paulsen Commissioner James Hanning's brother, Aaron Hanning, had been plotting together to spring a trap on Paulsen. In deposition, Aaron Hanning claimed he was driving home after a long day at work at the Sheriff dispatch office when he got a phone call, no he couldn't remember who called him, but he was told that Paulsen was at church in Eufaula and he was given a website address to bring up on his phone, a live feed of the church service and there was a wanted criminal in the front row! Paulsen of course.
Aaron Hanning claimed he watched the live feed video for one minute before he “did his citizens duty” and called the Eufaula Police Department. Aaron even mentioned that Paulsen was standing in the front row of the church when he saw him on the live video feed. In fact, several people watched that video which is still online as of this writing, the camera stayed tightly focused on the preacher until the end of the service when it scanned the crowd, around 9 pm, no where near the 7:15 pm time that Aaron claimed in his deposition under oath. It was close to the 9:25 pm call that Aaron actually made to Eufaula, a few minutes after Commissioner James Hanning called him while he was at work at the dispatch office. Yup, Aaron appears to have lied under oath on the time of the call and more.
Now Aaron Hanning claimed he either worked 7 am till 7 pm three days a week and he worked 7 pm till 11 pm one day a week, forty hours, a standard work week. According to his testimony he was sure it was a regular 12 hour day because he had headed home and wanted to go inside to see his son. So sure enough that would have put him at home around the time he called Eufaula to report the dangerous criminal on the loose, with warrants out for his arrest from Mayes County (the gun charge, the “warrant under advisement”) and from Wagoner County.
Now Eufaula followed procedure, procedure outlined by Aaron Hanning during his deposition. They don't just go arrest someone because a concerned citizen alerted them of the location of a wanted criminal, they always call the county with the warrant or warrant hold and ask for a copy of the warrant. Dispatch at the county looks in their file cabinet, finds the warrant, and confirms the hold and the arrest then sends a copy on to the arresting agency and jail.
But that day Aaron Hanning did double duty. At exactly 9:25 pm Aaron Hanning calls Eufaula to warn about the dangerous criminal on the run from the law. 9:25 pm, not closer to 7 pm when he got off work that day as he claimed in his deposition. The exact time that the Eufaula PD reports the incoming call warning them of the dangerous wanted criminal.
Was he really sitting outside his house shortly after 7 pm, watching a video and calling Eufaula? No, because we have the phone records that Aaron fought long and hard to avoid releasing under subpoena. And he didn't remember who tipped him off around 7 pm on his way home? Well, the only call he made around that time, the first call of the day actually, was to mom, the same mom that was at home with his son and he called mom at 7:15 pm, about the same time he claimed he was sitting in the driveway.
Now who could it have been that tipped him off that a dangerous criminal on the run was at an obscure church far away in Eufaula? Commissioner James Hanning, his brother, called Aaron Hanning twice, once at 8:03 pm and again at 9:22 pm, three minutes before Aaron Hanning called the Eufaula PD. Then two minutes later after Aaron called Eufaula, Aaron calls Commissioner James Hanning back. That would have been almost immediately after the Eufaula phone call ended. No mention of this on Aaron's deposition although Aaron did admit that once he consulted his phone records he would remember who called him with the tip that the wanted criminal was located. And the Eufaula PD report states that Paulsen was arrested at 9:42 pm. And Aaron Hanning called his brother Commissioner James Hanning four minutes later at 9:42 pm.
So was Aaron Hanning at home in his driveway when he made his call to Eufaula like he claimed in his deposition?
Nope. Part of the excellent deposition was Paulsen's attorney getting Aaron Hanning to outline the procedures at his Wagoner County Sheriff dispatch job. And part of that deposition covered if Hanning could have answered phone calls while off duty and not at the dispatch center. The answer was no for several reasons, one that the calls had to be recorded, two was that it wasn't allowed to do business away from the secure dispatch center. Sounds reasonable, right?
But we do know exactly where Aaron Hanning was at a few minutes after he called Eufaula to report the dangerous criminal on the loose, he was working at the Wagoner County Sheriff dispatch center. We know that because of the audio recordings and transcript of the call from Eufaula PD to Wagoner County Sheriff dispatch to verify the warrants! Aaron at first pretends that he doesn't recognize the call, asking for the last name of the subject, then the first name, claiming on his deposition that in one second he verified the warrant and told Eufaula to arrest Paulsen.
So far both Eufaula PD and Wagoner County Sheriff Department have refused to furnish time stamped proof that is was Aaron Hanning answering the phone call. But we do have the call from Eufaula to Wagoner County Sheriff dispatch where it is Aaron's voice, he uses his own name answering the call, Aaron even knows that Paulsen has a court date the next day in Mayes County and that Wagoner County has a hold on Paulsen after the hearing in Mayes County, Aaron even knows what kind of truck Paulsen is driving that night. Did I mention that Aaron and Paulsen were friends at one point not too long before all of this went down? Even more telling, Aaron makes a Freudian slip, when he volunteers the Mayes County info he slips and says:
The "we" was Aaron and Commissioner James Hanning knowing that Paulsen had a court date. Remember Mayes County never had a warrant out against Paulsen at that point.
And keep in mind that Aaron Hanning, brother of Commissioner Hanning, was pretending he wasn't the same Aaron that had called Eufaula a few minutes before they called him at Wagoner County!!!!!
And now it gets really weird. On the court record on 8/9/2018 a court minute is filed pushing the court date back to 12/20/2018 BUT the court minute isn't filed until October 29th 2018, keeping in mind that the hearing was already set for September 23rd so neither Paulsen nor his attorney had missed any court dates. The same “under advisement” language was used and the court minute said that Paulsen remained free on the original bond. But why wait ten weeks to file the court minute?
One day before the December court hearing Paulsen's attorney had a family emergency and asked for another continuance, again the prosecutor agrees, the same “under advisement” and “remain free on original bail” is in the document that is filed on December 31st.
And we found out after much scrutiny of the transcripts, court records, and talking to Paulsen. The Mayes County prosecutor at that time had learned that there might well be some corruption going on with this case in Wagoner County and he was helping Paulsen's attorneys with continuance after continuance to pace the Wagoner County lawsuit between Paulsen and Commissioner James Hanning, knowing when more evidence was uncovered it would be easy to prove that this was a railroad job.
But there is more, much more. First, there was no arrest warrant out for Paulsen from Mayes County. Wagoner County DID have an arrest warrant because on August 23rd the Wagoner County District Attorney office filed an application to revoke the deferred sentence on Paulsen for the original 2016 A&B charges. Why? Because Paulsen had been arrested for speeding and expired license, which wasn't expired if you read the letter from DPS to Paulsen stating that he indeed did have a license and that yes, he was one day late in renewing the license and that required a trip to DPS to show documentation of his completed drunk driving classes. And you read the letter from the DOC stating that they didn't know who he was and never had him on any of their parolee or supervision lists that would have made him unable to have a weapon while under supervision.
Look at the dates, Wagoner County D.A. Files the application to revoke on the 23rd, Aaron Hanning tries to and gets Paulsen arrested in Eufaula on the 25th, the day before the Mayes County 26th hearing so that Paulsen gets arrested for failure to appear and has his $10,000 bail tripled to $30,000! Luckily Paulsen's attorney had filed the continuance the day before before Paulsen was arrested on fake warrant charges. In fact it had been an elaborate hoax to get Paulsen arrested so he missed his court date in Mayes County.
And it gets much worse, the corruption that is. Remember that in December 2018 Loony had cooked off one too many times and a final break had happened between her and Paulsen? And Loony made repeated threats to Paulsen stating that she would partner with Commissioner James Hanning to ruin Paulsen? There were actually 3,000 pages of Loony text messages threatening Paulsen that were attempted to be entered into evidence in that one Wagoner County court hearing. Boiled bunny anyone?
In January of 2018 the Wagoner County D.A. filed an application to revoke the 2016 deferred sentence of Paulsen due to the October 2nd 2017 Adair arrest for suspended license. Wagoner County ADA Mike Fisher filed the application to revoke, only to withdraw the motion on August 11th of 2018, requiring Paulsen to pay $55.00 in costs.
Good news, right? So why did Wagoner County have a warrant out for Paulsen's arrest on August 25th?
Because Wagoner County D.A. Mike Fisher got his ass eaten out and was removed from the case after he dismissed the motion to revoke. ADA John Bennett started showing up for Wagoner County and they filed the second motion to revoke the deferred sentence. Mike Fisher was out, people with less scruples were in. Fisher had seen the agreement that Paulsen had signed in 2016 and agreed that the agreement said nothing about having weapons while on supervision from a D.A.. Mike Fisher did the right thing! And got removed for doing the right thing!
Bennet pushes to revoke the deferred sentence until July 16th of 2019 , keep in mind that Paulen was arrested and forced to post another $10,000 bond on August 30th of 2018. Then Wagoner County D.A. Jack Thorpe announces he had a conflict and his entire District Attorney office withdraws from the case and a Mayes County prosecutor steps in appoint by...... we are guessing Joy Thorpe, Jack Thorpe's wife, who works at the A.G. office where new prosecutors are appointed when a D.A. has a conflict of interest in a case.
On September 9th 2019 there is a court hearing on the motion to revoke the 2016 deferred sentence. It is interesting because the judge asks four Wagoner County ADAs why they were present as their office had been recused by Jack Thorpe himself. Their reply? They were interested in the case.....
Paulsen's attorneys are correctly stating at that hearing that Paulsen had no warning that he wasn't allowed to have weapons while on D.A. supervision, something that even the judge agreed on, stating that he was unaware of any changes in law from the previous rule that only DOC supervised defendants were restricted from having weapons. It turned out that in 2014 the law indeed was changed but the Wagoner County D.A. Office didn't realize the law had changed, dozens of other prosecutor offices, judges, and defense attorneys didn't realize the law had changed either so when Paulsen signed that 2016 plea agreement with the list of prohibitions the warning not to have weapons wasn't on the agreement! Even the Wagoner County D.A. was ignorant of the law change.
When did they figure out about the law change? Some times between the August 11th 2018 dismissal of the application to revoke and the August 23rd 2018 re filed application to revoke. We know that because the new D.A. after Fisher added the no gun requirement on line 7 of the newly filed documents! Yes, they drafted a NEW plea agreement that they wanted to force Paulsen to sign after revoking his 2016 plea deal. Thereby admitting that they didn't know the law at the time Paulsen was given the plea deal in 2016.
In short, this absolutely appears to be a clear cut case of a county commissioner, a bitter woman, and a county sheriff's office colluding to railroad a young man to prevent a county commissioner from paying for embezzling money from a business partner. There appears to be no doubt that the money was embezzled. There appears to be no doubt that the fake arrest on the Mayes county charge was done. There is no doubt that Paulsen wasn't warned of the new law change to restrict guns while on D.A. supervision because the D.A. didn't know it was a law when he had Paulsen sign the plea agreement in 2016.
Next week we will learn that allegations of child molestation came up on two of the men involved in this soap opera. One was cleared, the other, well you will not believe that story and the depth of the corruption in Wagoner County.
