Jeff McMahan and Wife Guilty
Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector Jeff McMahan and his wife Lori McMahan have been convicted by a federal jury on one count of conspiracy and two counts of accepting bribes. They were acquitted of five mail fraud counts.
Shortly after the guilty verdict was handed down, McMahan submitted a one sentence letter of resignation to Governor Brad Henry.
With the guilty verdict, Jeff McMahan joins an ever-growing list of corrupt Oklahoma politicians who are now convicted felons. A list which includes the likes of David Hall, Gene Stipe, Mike Mass, Carroll Fisher and more former county commissioners than you could shake a stick at.
The McMahan convictions were an outgrowth of their association with southeast Oklahoma businessman and convicted felon Steve Phipps.
Phipps, along with former Senator and convicted felon Gene Stipe owned several “abstracting companies” and Phipps bribed McMahan for favorable treatment.
Until the Jeff McMahan scandal broke the office of Oklahoma State Auditor and Inspector regulated abstract companies in Oklahoma and provided corrupt politicians yet another way to milk the system, which is exactly what McMahan and wife were convicted of doing, taking bribes from Steve Phipps.
Since the McMahan scandal hit, oversight of abstracting companies has been removed from the office of the State Auditor and Inspector and vested in a new state board. That move may solve the problem of corrupt politicians with their hand out to “abstracting companies” or it may simply put more corrupt people in a position to milk the system. The jury will be out on that one for a while.
Property “abstracting” is a quaint function which exists only in Iowa and Oklahoma and which permits an “abstracting company” to make money for providing a complete “history book” of a property and its various owners from the time the property first became known to government up to the present. Since land can not be sold in Oklahoma without an abstract being prepared, “abstracting” can be a lucrative business, kinda’ like the “tag agent business” which also has a long history of corruption in Oklahoma.
In any case, Jeff and Lori McMahan will not be milking the system any longer…
