Oklahoma County D.A. David Prater
Caught Illegally Digging for Dirt
Back in 2012 STP drug David Prater kicking and screaming in front of a grand jury over allegations of massive campaign finance issues and the refusal to prosecute four felonies against four well connected campaign contributors to his election. Before Prater appeared before the grand jury to answer to them he slapped all four attorneys on the wrist and paid back some of the illicit campaign donations, including writing a check to a dead man. As the proceedings are secret, we will never know how many indictment votes were cast, we just know that it was less than the nine votes needed to indict him. No one is ever cleared by a grand jury, they are either indicted or not.
And now Prater finds himself in the hot seat after a notice of claim against the state filing from a former investigator with the Ok County D.A. Office. Robert Gifford filed the claim on behalf of William Muller. It charges Prater for improperly firing Muller after an illegal investigation was ordered by Prater against former Speaker of the House Kris Steele. After an investigation into Steele came up empty, Prater ordered Muller to obtain a grand jury subpoena to seize financial information from Paycom, and online payroll and HR service. Muller said that Prater was illegally fishing for incriminating or compromising information against Steele and the ACLU over the Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform movement.
Muller claimed there was no outside agency asking for the investigation and no case file generated, just an informal investigation without probable cause. Muller also claimed that after no wrongdoing was found in the grand jury documents Prater became irrational and angry. Muller believed that Prater was dong his own personal investigation against a political enemy, Kris Steele. A s there was no probable cause for an investigation this appears to be an illegal investigation.
Prater of course called the charges ridiculous and claims he cannot respond due to legal restrictions on saying why he fired someone, which itself is ridiculous as he would be responding to an attack, not volunteering the info.
And it wasn't that long ago that Prater and Steele were butt hole buddies, working together on soft on crime programs and attempting to force legislation through. Prater has always had a robust fishing service going on 24/7/365 days a year. Prater seemed to always be searching for compromising info on candidates or elected officials, then squeezing them either for more information on others or to get them to support legislation.
