OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office said Tuesday it was continuing its investigation of reports that a video of naked women was seen by two state education board members on a television in Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters’ office at the state education department.
The statement follows a firestorm of stories – first published in The Oklahoman and quickly republished by national and international media – which reported that board members Becky Carson and Ryan Deatherage saw images of several naked women on a television in Walters’ office. Carson and Deatherage said they saw the images during the executive session portion of the Oklahoma State Board of Education’s monthly board meeting.
A third education board member, Chris VanDenhende, told Tulsa World that he did not see the video but corroborated what Carson and Deatherage described, including Walters’ reaction to Carson's concern about the video’s content and Walters’ attempts to turn off the television.
A short time later Walters issued a statement blasting the story.
“Any suggestion that a device of mine was used to stream inappropriate content on the television set is categorically false,” Walters said. “I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing.”
Since then, Republican leaders in the Oklahoma Legislature called for an investigation of the incident. House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow, and Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle, both said the issue needed to be examined.
Hilbert said Walters should unlock and turn over all relevant devices as part of an outside review into what happened. Paxton echoed Hilbert, adding that, “the accounts made public by board members paint a strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency.”
On July 28, officials with the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation confirmed they were working together to review what happened.
One day later, Walters held a press conference at the state Capitol. During that event Walters said investigators had concluded that none of his devices were ever connected to the television. He said he was targeted by a coordinated campaign of lies and called on members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education to resign and said both Gov. Kevin Stitt and the media were responsible for the “attack.”
'We have had our name cleared by both OMES and the sheriff’s office,' Walters said. 'There is nothing scandalous that I was part of, whatsoever.'
But that same day, the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office issued a media statement which countered Walters’ statement. The office said the investigation was “still in its infancy” and that it would be inappropriate to discuss whom they plan to speak with or what evidence they are seeking.
“You can, however, expect a thorough investigation with the results being made public at the conclusion,” the agency said.
A memo to lawmakers from OMES – a copy of which was obtained by Southwest Ledger – also contradicts several of Walters’ statements. That memo notes that OMES received a written complaint from an OSDE board member requesting to “file a formal complaint and request that his (Walters’) computers, personal devices and cellphones used by him at his office using government resources be preserved to ensure any pornography be preserved.”
The OMES said the agency “reached out to the Oklahoma County Sheriff and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation out of an abundance of caution and in recognition that OMES is not a law enforcement agency and has no authority to investigate such matters.”
“OMES, along with three sheriff deputies, conducted a visit to OSDE on the afternoon of July 28 and engaged a third-party vendor to perform a thorough analysis of the TV,” the memo said, adding that “at this time, we cannot determine definitively whether or not an incident took place.”
The memo contained no language clearing Walters and said agency officials at OMES were “currently awaiting further word from the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office.”