Officials’ discussion is ‘no surprise’
(Editor’s Note: This story contains harsh, offensive language.)
IDABEL – On at least six different occasions, Mark Matloff, the District Attorney for Choctaw, McCurtain and Pushmataha counties, wrote letters to the state attorney general’s office detailing concerns with the McCurtain County Sheriff’s office, a newly released audio recording indicates.
Outlined in a three-hour, 37-minute recording made by The McCurtain Gazette publisher Bruce Willingham, Deputy Sheriff Alicia Manning told McCurtain Commissioner Mark Jennings, Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix and Sheriff Kevin Clardy that Matloff, the district attorney, had written six letters to the AG’s office about concerns with the sheriff’s department.
“He (Matloff) told me he’s wrote six letters to the AG’s office on me and Kevin,” Manning said on the recording.
“Who? Mark has?” Jennings replied.
“Mhmmm,” Manning said.
“So, what are you going to do for a judge down here?” Jennings asked. “Will it get transferred out of the county?”
“Have to,” Manning said.
“Well, the AG is tied, with me it’s tied,” Clardy said. “The AG, he was talking to actually come down here.”
“They don’t care,” Manning said. “They don’t care what happens. Nobody fucking likes him (Matloff). Nobody. He’s just them (sic) little old chihuahua.”
“I have this person’s phone number,” Clardy said. “The AG, that particular AG, the AG is there with the state level. Nobody likes Mark up there in Oklahoma City.”
The recording appears to underscore a statement made Friday by new Attorney General Gentner Drummond. The Tulsa World reported that Drummond told the Rotary Club of Sand Springs his agents were in McCurtain County about two weeks ago.
“Not because we anticipated a stupid racist slur, but there is something rotten in McCurtain County,” Drummond said. “It’s that old-school lack of transparency and accountability. There’s a lot of mischief going on in the county government of McCurtain County. We had our eye on one guy and all of a sudden, this broke.”
Drummond, the newspaper reported, “noted the importance of McCurtain County’s Hochatown and Broken Bow Lake area as a tourism mecca.”
“We get a lot of money out of Texas,” Drummond said. “Texas dollars are pouring into Oklahoma every day, so we want to keep them robust.”
Still, the fallout from the tape continues.
Though most of the nation was shocked by the recording, for the residents of the area, that type of behavior by the sheriff and the commissioners was nothing new. In fact, the biggest surprise for many in McCurtain County was that the conversation became public.
“This crap, it goes on here all the time,” said ‘Cindy’ who asked that her name be changed fearing pushback. ‘It’s nothing new down there. That’s just the way those guys act.”
The release of the audio recording has generated a firestorm of stories in media outlets across the globe and harsh reactions from state leaders.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and the state legislators who represent the area continue to call for the resignations Clardy, Manning and Hendrix.
“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” the governor said. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place.”
On Friday, Stitt said his office was looking at legal ways – including impeachment – to remove Clardy from office.
“This guy needs to do the right thing and he needs to step down, because he's only hurting himself, and he's only hurting Oklahoma, and I don't think he can be effective at this point," the governor said.
Stitt’s office sent a letter to Drummond urging the attorney general to investigate problems in McCurtain County and to “institute proceedings to oust Sheriff Clardy from office” should Drummond find there is a reasonable cause.
Bruce Willingham, the publisher of The McCurtain Gazette, said he made the recordings because he was concerned members of the commission had continued to discuss county business and make decisions after the regular commission meetings had ended.
Willingham told The Associated Press he had turned copies of the tapes over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when he heard that he and his son were being threatened.
Mark Jennings, the county commissioner, stepped down from his post late last Wednesday, sending a handwritten resignation letter to Gov. Stitt. However, Clardy and the two sheriff staffers heard on the recording remain in office.
Community leaders in the area continue to push the Clardy, Manning and Hendrix to step down. On April 17, Idabel Mayor Craig Young spoke to Jennings, Clardy and others. Young urged Jennings and Clardy the group to resign.
Young, who is Black, said comments by Clardy destroyed the sheriff’s credibility with the people he is supposed to protect. “At this point they are not leaders,” Young said, “They are just elected officials and we need them to resign so this community can begin to heal.”
Young said the entire community of the area was disappointed by the behavior of the sheriff’s office. “You know we have a sheriff that should be protecting and serving,” he said. “We are all concerned as a community as whole. We are concerned about the racial statements.”
Clardy’s office responded to the controversy by issuing a statement on social media that suggested the recordings had been altered and obtained illegally.
“Many of these recordings, like the one published by media outlets on Friday, have yet to be duly authenticated or validated,” the sheriff’s office statement said. “Our preliminary information indicated that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. The matter is actively being investigated.”
On April 20, Willingham’s newspaper released the full recording which includes the full conversation after the commission meeting and, like the outtakes previously released, is harsh, ugly and incendiary.
One part of the recording, a conversation between Clardy, Manning and Jennings about McCurtain County District Attorney Mark Matloff, indicates that Clardy bragged about going to the district attorney’s office to “whoop his (Matloff’s) ass.”
Clardy, Manning said, drove to Matloff’s office with his sirens on to confront Matloff. “At that time, I realized got his sirens on and I’m walking in Larry’s office and I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He was, like, ‘I’m going to Mark’s office.”
“About to whoop his damn ass,” Clardy replied.
“Turn your damn sirens off,” Manning said. “And he said, ‘I’m not turning my sirens off.’ I said, ‘You’re a fucking idiot.’”
“True story,” Hendrix said, as Manning continues.
“About that time Clardy hops a curb in front of the jail and I was like, me and Larry were just watching Clardy walk in the door, and I was like, ‘I’m not going in there, but I know who is going to be on the winning end of that battle,” Manning said.
Clardy said he was angry with Matloff because Matloff accused him of lying.
“He called up and said I was a liar,” Clardy said. “And I went over to his fucking office and (said) I’ll tell you know thing, motherfucker, I ain’t no fucking liar.’ I shouldn’t have said what I did. He was looking for a place to get out of his damn door.”
“You got him straight though, didn’t you?” Hendrix, the jail administrator said.
“Well, I was pissed,” Clardy said. “He said, ‘You have a seat.’ I said I think I’ll stand. I was standing right in the middle of his door. I went over there to whoop his ass. I got pissed off. I got pissed off.”
Hendrix replied that, unlike Clardy, he didn’t confront people when angry. “I let myself cool off,” Hendrix said. “I’d have fired everybody over there if I did shit when I was mad.”
Hendrix continued, telling the group that Clardy’s confrontation with Matloff was heard throughout the McCurtain County Courthouse.
“We were seating a jury on a robbery case I was working, and I heard it,” Hendrix said. I was coming down the stairs I was on the second floor. I mean, everyone in the courthouse is looking around. And that lady says who is that yelling? And I say that is the sheriff and the district attorney. She goes, ‘Oh my word!’”
Later in the conversation, Manning confirmed that officials with the Attorney General’s office have received numerous complaints about her and Clardy. She said the DA’s office had sent at least six letters to the attorney general about Clardy.
With the issue still festering, residents of the area held a public meeting on Saturday address concerns about Clardy and his staff. Young, the Idabel mayor, said he doesn’t think Clardy would resign, adding that it would take state or federal action to remove Clardy from office.
“He’s had plenty of time to resign,” Young said. “So, I think it’s going to have to come to the federal level or the state level to remove him from office. I don’t understand why it’s such a slow process. We need it to happen ASAP so we can start recovering here.”