OKLAHOMA CITY – Two Native Americans have been indicted in federal court here on charges of committing crimes in Stephens County, within Indian Country.
Lawrence Junior Loftis, 64, is named in two counts of aggravated sexual abuse with a child under the age of 12 and one count of abusive sexual contact with a child under 12 years of age.
The case began to unfold on Feb. 25, 2020, when Stephens County Deputy Sheriff Lonnie Estes and Sarah Roberson of Child Protective Services went to Velma school “in response to a report of a possible sexual molestation involving an 11-year-old boy,” according to an affidavit filed by Shana Terry, a special agent with the FBI’s Lawton Resident Agency.
After the child was interviewed, the Stephens County District Attorney’s office charged Loftis less than a week later with sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12.
Loftis filed a motion on March 19, 2021, to dismiss the state charge, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma last July. Loftis is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation; the alleged crimes occurred at his home in Ratliff City, which is within the boundaries of the Chickasaw Nation Reservation; and the victim too is a Native American.
A federal grand jury indicted Loftis on April 20.
George Skitt III, 52, also known as George Skitt Jr., was indicted that same day on a charge of first-degree burglary in Indian Country.
The Duncan Police Department was dispatched to a residence on July 1, 2020, in response to a 911 call of a burglary in progress.
When police officers arrived they saw a man they recognized as Skitt running down an alley while carrying a black bag. The officers said they recognized Skitt “due to prior law enforcement contacts with him,” an FBI special agent wrote about the incident.
A short time later Duncan police searched the alley and found Skitt hiding in the back yard of a nearby residence, and found the black bag he had been carrying. When Skitt was arrested officers observed that his left hand was lacerated and bleeding.
The officers were told that two minor children, 12 and 9, were at home when the break-in occurred; their mother had left the house to pick up her 16-year-old son at his job site.
When the younger boys heard a window in the back of their home being broken, they called their mother. A man they had previously seen on their porch “walked into their living room, … stopped when he noticed there were people” in the house, “told the two boys he was there to mow the lawn, and ran out the back door,” the FBI agent’s report relates.
The 12-year-old “positively identified” Skitt as the person who entered their house; two drills and a First Aid kit found in the black bag were identified by the eldest son as having been stolen from their home; and blood was found on a mini-blind torn from the window and on the wall near the entry to the living room.
The case was filed in the Western District federal court in OKC because Skitt is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and the Duncan residence he allegedly burglarized lies within the boundaries of the Chickasaw Nation Reservation.
Court files and records of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections show Skitt has committed liquor-related offenses in Stephens, Jackson and Comanche counties for more than 30 years.
He was convicted of felony charges of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol in 1987, 1994, 1996, 2001 and 2005.
In 2013 Skitt was arrested in Marlow on a misdemeanor charge of public drunkenness and pleaded guilty. In 2015 he was arrested by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol on a misdemeanor charge of transporting an open bottle of liquor while driving in Stephens County; he pleaded guilty and received a six-month suspended sentence, but a little over a year later the suspension was revoked and he spent 87 days in the Stephens County jail.