Hey, look at this

Phillip John Ortega

Phillip John Ortega, 56, has been arrested in Oklahoma for allegedly exposing himself to an Oklahoma City woman.

It is alleged that when Ortega approached the woman he was wearing a woman’s pink single piece swimsuit, panty hose and makeup.

The alleged victim told police that she was smoking a cigarette on her porch when the man, whom she at first thought was a woman, walked toward her and asked her “Where’d my friend go?”

Reportedly the woman asked the man to go away at which point he allegedly used his left hand to pull the bathing suit to the side and his right hand to pull out his genitals, shaking them and saying, “Hey, look at this.

The cops found Ortega walking nearby, which probably didn’t taking much looking for a man in a woman’s pink swimsuit, and hauled him off to jail.

Reportedly, Ortega is on probation for a six-year suspended sentence related to a 2007 felony attempted kidnapping case in Oklahoma County.

Getting Strange

Michael

To some it may appear to be getting strange when Sequoyah County Commissioner Michael D. “Mike” Huff, 60, (pictured above) pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges in Arkansas and was sentenced to 10 days in the Sebastian County Detention Center and ordered to pay $490 in fines and court costs.

Usually when County Commissioners from Oklahoma enter either no contest or guilty pleas it’s to felony charges and in federal court in Oklahoma.

However, Sequoyah County Commissioner Mike Huff’s case is different than the typical case involving a county commissioner from Oklahoma, cases usually involving fraud and corruption.

Mike Huff was arrested on June 11th, in Fort Smith, Arkansas on misdemeanor charges of patronizing a prostitute and refusing to submit to arrest. This after he was busted in a prostitution sting conducted by the Fort Smith Police Department. Reportedly, five other “alleged john” were busted along with Huff during the sting.

It was alleged that Commissioner Huff took what he thought was a prostitute to the “Relax Inn”, a Fort Smith hotel, where he was subsequently busted. Huff was taken to the Sebastian County Detention Center from which he was released on a $2,500 bond.

On June 15th, Huff appeared for arraignment on the charges and entered a plea of not guilty. A court date was set for August 6th. On August 6th Huff appeared in Fort Smith District Court and entered his no contest plea.

Huff’s attorney Eddie Christian Sr. asked the judge to set Huff’s surrender date 30 days in the future. The judge ordered Huff to surrender to the Sebastian County Detention Center to begin serving his sentence on September 3rd.

Huff, who was was elected Sequoyah County District 3 Commissioner in 2006, is serving a four-year term.

Huff’s official duties include oversight of the Sequoyah County Jail. Since he will be getting a close up and personal look at how the folks in Arkansas run their jails, that might prove beneficial to the tax payers of Sequoyah County. If nothing else, he may at least come back with a clue.

In the mean time, Commissioner Huff might want to forget the “Viva Viagra” jingle and try to remember that he is married.

At least for the time being…

An Old Fashion Thrown Down

On a hot August night, dozens of Tulsa’s finest were called to Big Splash Water Park after hundreds of youths reportedly brawled inside the park and on its parking lot.

Tulsa Police officers were called in from all over the city to help control the crowd which cops estimated at 3,500.

Prior to the arrival of the first wave of cops there was reportedly only one somewhat over-worked security guard on duty at the water park.

Eventually the cops managed to gain the upper hand on the brawlers, the park was closed for the night and numerous kids whose parents were scheduled to pick them up at the planned closing time of 10:00 pm were “dumped” onto the adjacent streets and parking lots to amuse themselves.

Some apparently wandered across 21st Street to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market where they engaged in a bit of looting to pass the time and amuse themselves.

While the events of the night of August 5th are unfortunate, it could have been worse, a lot worse.

There was no knife or gun play involved and the only reported injury was to a teen girl that was trampled by the crowd and she reportedly did not require hospitalization.

And amazingly, Tulsa Police did not have to make a single arrest.

They simply used a massive police presence to break up the brawl and loudspeakers to herd the crowd away from the water park.

I guess it just goes to show you how well behaved a brawling mob can be on Christian youth night at the water park.

Yes, you read that right.

The event was dubbed, “Waves of Worship” and was sponsored by Christian radio station KXOJ.

It Must Be The Heat

It has been a few years, well only three years, since some Tulsans suffered a heat induced outbreak of lunacy which resulted in the last lame-brain proposal to “do something”.

Guess what?
Here we go again…

Back during the summer of 2006, in the midst of a heat wave, a project called “The Channels” was proposed. The idea was to build a new multi-use development in Tulsa. Well, not so much “in Tulsa” as in the big middle of the Arkansas River in Tulsa.

The fantasy was to build three man-made islands, linked together in the middle of the river, creating 40 acres of public, office, and residential space with entertainment facilities. The folks behind this lunacy offered to put up $100 million of their own money, if the taxpayers of Tulsa would cough up an additional $600 million of theirs.

Fortunately not all Tulsans had lost their minds in the heat and they refused to go along with the idea of “The Channels” , sending the proposal to the death it so rightfully deserved.

Now here is it summer again and we are in the midst of yet another heat wave and are experiencing another outbreak of lunacy fueling another lame-brain proposal.

The latest proposal, and it is a real laugher – let’s bring the 2020 Summer Olympics to Tulsa…

Yeah, you read that right.

The Tulsa 2020 Committee on Tuesday presented the City Council with the idea of Tulsa making a bid to host the 2020 summer Olympic games.

Of course Tulsa has a few, well make that a lot, of issues to over-come before it can hope to land the Olympics. Here’s just a partial list.

(1) Find a way to not only fix the streets but also to afford to keep the street lights on, neither of which we have been able to do in years.

(2) Find a way to hire LOTS more cops, firefighters and para-medics and while doing so find a way to stop making the ones we currently have take mandatory un-paid furlough days as they are now doing.

(3) Find a way to hire LOTS more other city employees and while doing so find a way to stop making the ones we currently have take mandatory un-paid furlough days as they are now doing.

(4) Scare up some hotel rooms, LOTS of hotel rooms. With Tulsa having only an estimated 13,000 hotel/motel rooms and the Olympic Committee requiring 40,000 this may be a problem. Using boats anchored out at the Port of Catoosa to supply the missing hotel rooms, as suggested by proponents of the proposal, has drawbacks. If each boat only houses up to 150 visitors each as proponents of this lunacy suggest, we would have boats lined up along the Arkansas Navigation Channel from Catoosa all the way down to New Orleans and possibly into the Gulf of Mexico.

(5) The Olympic Committee requires a 80,000-seat stadium. Skelly Stadium ain’t gonna’ cut it at 25,000 or so capacity. Maybe we could saw the top off the BOK center (capacity 17,000 or so currently), add side-boards all round it to about 10 stories high and put in bleachers sufficient to hold 80,000 but it probably wouldn’t look like much and work out worse. Oh! The humanity!!!

(6) With Tulsa basically “broke” to the point we can’t afford to pay the cops and firefighters, it’s not going to be easy providing all the other facilities required by the Olympic Committee either. Maybe we could hold the swimming events down at the Arkansas River, provided there was water in it during the summer of 2020 – not a sure thing by any means. But if there is water, the e-coli and dead bodies that inhabit the Arkansas River during summer should make for some “interesting” races. Heck, even us old fat guys would “haul ass” to get out of that water as quickly as possible. For track and field, there’s always the various tracks next to some Tulsa high schools and of course the storm water retention ponds could be used, providing it wasn’t raining and the soccer kids weren’t using them at the time. But still, we are going to have to do some building, LOTS of building.

This is just the “short list” of issues that will have to be resolved if Tulsa is to con, oops – I mean convince, the International Olympic Committee to hold the 2020 Summer Olympics here. There’s more, lots more to be resolved but until the above issues are addressed there’s no need worrying about the rest.

And if it doesn’t work out, there’s always the possibility of landing the Winter Olympics.

We could host those in the “Tulsa Mountains”.

Providing John Erling will tell us where they are…

Ex-Sheriff – Deal Or No Deal

Former Woodward County Sheriff Leslie Morton

On January 12, 2009 former Woodward County Sheriff Leslie Morton, shown above, appeared in Woodward County District Court for a preliminary hearing on 9 counts of embezzlement. It was alleged that Morton, while sheriff, used his county-issued vehicle and fuel card for personal use.

At that time, Morton entered a no contest plea to five of the embezzlement counts and as part of the plea deal, the state dropped the remaining four embezzlement counts.

At that hearing and in order to enter the no contest plea, Morton waived his right to a jury trial, was found mentally competent to do so, was advised of his rights and without admitting guilt Morton agreed to accept the punishment called for in the plea deal.

Under the terms of the plea deal with the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office, Morton received a one-year unsupervised deferred sentence, was ordered to pay $878.66 in restitution and was prohibited from seeking or accepting employment in law enforcement until after 3/27/09.

In addition, Morton was ordered to pay court costs and deferred fees.

On January 22, 2009, a mere ten days after cutting what some might consider a “sweetheart deal”, former Woodward County Sheriff Leslie Morton apparently decided that the deal wasn’t as sweet as he originally thought.

On that date, Morton filed a motion to withdraw his earlier no contest plea and restore his trial rights.

In March, Morton filed an application for count appointed counsel. After reviewing the application and hearing Morton’s testimony and state’s cross examination the judge denied Morton’s application for a free lawyer.

In May, a court hearing was set for June 4th on Morton’s motion to withdraw his no contest plea and restore his trial rights.

On June 4th, the hearing on Morton’s motion to withdraw and proceed to trial was heard and that motion was denied. At that time, counsel for Leslie Morton gave oral notice of intent to appeal.

Morton’s appeal was thereafter filed with the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, where it is currently pending.

According to court records Morton, who was defeated in his 2008 bid for re-election, owed the State of Oklahoma $6204.00 in costs and fees as of 07/31/2009.

This post will be updated as new developments occur.