MUSKOGEE — Eight lawsuits against the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, the county jail trust and/or Sheriff Kevin Clardy and his deputies have been filed in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court in the past eight years, and five of them are still active.
Three of those cases alleged county officials were to blame in the deaths of jail inmates. One of those lawsuits, alleging negligence, use of excessive force and “deliberate indifference” in the death of a jail inmate in 2015, was settled out of court for a six-figure sum. Another seeks in excess of $2 million.
In a related matter, a former McCurtain County Jail employee is charged with sexual battery for alleged sexual liaisons with a three-time convicted violent felon who was incarcerated there.
• Christopher Lee Willingham, son of The McCurtain Gazette publisher Bruce Willingham, filed a lawsuit March 6 alleging slander, supervisory liability, and retaliation over a series of stories published in the Idabel newspaper that exposed “malfeasance” in the county sheriff’s department.
U.S. Magistrate Jason A. Robertson on Aug. 9 referred the case for a settlement conference on Feb. 13, 2024, and commanded the attorneys to appear at that conference with their clients.
• Bobby Dale Barrick, 45, died March 18, 2022, five days after an encounter with McCurtain County deputies and a state game ranger following an incident that occurred at a store in Eagletown.
Barrick’s widow, Barbara Barrick, is seeking more than $2 million from the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Clardy, Deputies Matthew Kasbaum, Quentin Lee and Kevin Storey, and Wildlife Department game ranger Mark Hannah.
The case was still active as of Aug. 10. If the widow prevails, the judgment will be paid from a special ad valorem tax collected on all property in the county for three years.
• The son of a McCurtain County jail inmate who died while incarcerated sued the jail trust, a nurse and two jail employees.
Tulsan Marcus Edd accused the trust, nurse Kerra Bailey and jail employees Madison Christopher and Tara Hallford of “non-existent or inadequate medical and mental health care” resulting in the December 2020 death of his mother, Travienna Lashun Edd, 49, of Idabel.
The lawsuit seeks damages in excess of $75,000 and was still active as of Aug. 10.
• Veda Carter sued the McCurtain County Jail Trust, the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, and 15 unidentified individuals in the death of her son.
Corey Carter, 40, of Valliant, had mental health issues when he was arrested and jailed on Feb. 12, 2015, restrained in a chair for several hours. At some point over the next five hours Carter was tased; he subsequently was declared brain dead, life support was removed, and he died the next day at a hospital in Texarkana, Texas.
No jailers were charged or even disciplined in the death, but the county settled out of court with Ms. Carter for $200,000, court records show.
• Eric Shawn Ray, 49, alleged in a lawsuit filed in 2020 that McCurtain County jail personnel denied him medical care when he was in pain and passing blood. That case was still active on Aug. 10, federal court records indicate.
• Roper Lee Harris alleges he was arrested at his home in Broken Bow in September 2021 by Sheriff Clardy, Deputy Richard Williamson and Captain Alicia Manning. Although he was “not exhibiting any physical (or otherwise meaningful) resistance,” the three officers employed “unreasonable, excessive, and unnecessary force” to place Harris in custody.
Harris also claims that after he arrived at the jail in Idabel, Jail Administrator Scott McClain and other jail employees used excessive force against him and allowed other jail inmates to “physically attack and beat” him.
Harris filed his lawsuit in June 2022, and it was still active as of Aug. 10, court records reflect.
• Marion Allen Whitten Jr. alleged that in January 2022 a McCurtain County jailer restrained him in a chair and hit him in the ears. Whitten also claimed that six months later he was pepper sprayed while in isolation and was not allowed to shower off for half an hour.
Named in the lawsuit were former jailer Larry Hendrix, a day shift supervisor and a night shift supervisor. The case was filed in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court on Jan. 4, 2023.
A federal judge dismissed the case without prejudice (meaning it can be refiled later) on July 13. Whitten failed to pay the requisite filing fee by March 23, and federal court mail sent to Whitten at the Choctaw County Jail was kicked back “Return to Sender; attempted but unable to forward.”
• Byron Cornelius Young Jr. alleged that while he was incarcerated in the McCurtain County Jail in September 2021, Deputy Kenneth Jennings shot him in the face with a PepperBall gun.
Young also claimed that after he finally was allowed to take a shower to wash off the pepper spray, Deputy Curtis Fields made him “walk from the medical and booking area back to the drunk tank (located in front of central control)” while naked, genitalia exposed “despite female staff being present…” Fields “never gave me time to put on clothes.”
Young dismissed his federal lawsuit on April 26. No explanation was provided in the court record.
• And in a related matter, Hannah Elizabeth Forte, 21, who worked at the McCurtain County Jail from Feb. 15, 2022, to April 6, 2023, was charged June 9 with sexual battery.
She is accused of having sex more than two dozen times earlier this year with a 33-year-old convicted felon who was incarcerated in the Idabel jail awaiting disposition in a felony case, records of the Oklahoma State Courts Network indicate.
Forte, of Fifty-Six, Arkansas, is free from custody on $25,000 bond and working in Melbourne, Arkansas, court records indicate. Her next appearance in McCurtain County District Court on the felony charge was scheduled for Aug. 10, but apparently that hearing was postponed because she applied for a court-appointed attorney on Aug. 3.