MUSKOGEE — The son of the publisher of an Idabel newspaper has filed a lawsuit accusing the McCurtain County Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Kevin Clardy and Captain Alicia Manning of slander, supervisory liability, and retaliation over a series of stories published in The McCurtain Gazette that exposed “malfeasance” in the county sheriff’s department.
Christopher Lee Willingham, son of Gazette publisher Bruce Willingham, is seeking damages “in an amount sufficient to compensate him for all injuries and harm he suffered,” along with punitive damages and court costs plus attorneys’ fees. He filed his lawsuit in Muskogee’s Eastern District federal court on March 6, 2023.
“Freedom of the press is the bedrock of democracy and human rights,” the lawsuit petition begins. The news media provide “a crucial service necessary for any democracy to function: accountability for public authorities.”
Yet journalists and reporters “find themselves under pressure around the world and right here in McCurtain County, Oklahoma, as governments attempt to silence those who scrutinize their actions too closely.”
One of Chris Willingham’s coverage “beats” for the Gazette is reporting on the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office.
In 2021 the newspaper began investigating multiple allegations against the MCSO that were “brought forward by former and current department employees.” The investigation resulted in an eight-part series written by Willingham and published in the Gazette between Nov. 21, 2021, and April 24, 2022.
In the first installment in the series, Willingham wrote about boxes of reportedly tainted homicide evidence and “rumors … spreading among the public and in [Sheriff Kevin Clardy’s] own office” of “a sexual relationship between the sheriff” and the department’s domestic violence investigator, Alicia Manning.
In the second installment, on Dec. 2, 2021, Willingham reported that Clardy appointed Larry Hendrix as temporary jail administrator, after which two jail employees, both of whom were former sheriff’s employees, were fired.
A week later the third installment reported that the “two most prolific investigators of the last five years [were] no longer employed at the sheriff’s department”; one resigned after being demoted to patrolman and the other was fired.
Willingham also reported that Clardy, Hendrix and Manning launched an investigation into “who was talking to the newspaper” and Clardy reportedly claimed he would fire “anybody who talks to Chris [Willingham]…”
Manning reportedly threatened to get search warrants for the cell phones of all deputies to determine “who was talking to” the Gazette. Willingham also reported that the Gazette received information that Clardy, Manning and Hendrix “were attempting to get a search warrant to seize Willingham’s cell phone to identify his sources.”
‘Willful maladministration’
In another installment in the series, the Gazette published a letter that a former sheriff’s narcotics investigator sent to the county commissioners and the newspaper, alleging that Hendrix failed to investigate a gang rape while head of the Criminal Investigation Division “and detailing his accounts of Clardy’s and Manning’s willful maladministration,” the lawsuit relates.
“Alicia [Manning] just continued to climb ranks at the Sheriff’s Office until she made number three in charge. All this with zero experience as a patrolman… In charge of all employees, but she really had no idea what those employees do.”
Willingham, in the sixth installment of the series, reported that Clardy appointed Alicia Manning’s brother, Mike Manning, to undersheriff, and the county jail trust voted to make Hendrix the new county jail administrator.
The story further reported, “In the past month there has been a mass exodus of employees from the sheriff’s department following more than a year’s worth of controversies this newspaper has covered…”
In the seventh installment, on Jan. 20, 2022, Willingham reported that Clardy violated the law by refusing to disclose 53 crime reports to Willingham under the Oklahoma Open Records Act.
The sheriff’s “purported reasoning was that those reports concerned a juvenile or domestic violence victim and could not be discussed in order for the MCSO to comply with a Violence Against Women Act grant which funded Alicia Manning’s salary…”
In the next story, Willingham reported that documents the Gazette received stated that the FBI and the OSBI were investigating the March 13, 2022, death of Bobby Barrick after his arrest by the MCSO. (See related story.)
Alicia Manning accused of slander
Alicia Manning on June 18, 2022, “retaliated against Willingham” for the stories he wrote about the MCSO, the lawsuit claims. During a teleconference Manning told a third party that Willingham exchanged marijuana for pornographic videos of children. Those statements were “false and slanderous,” Willingham said.
His lawsuit accuses Manning of subjecting him to “conduct that resulted in the deprivation of his constitutional rights,” including freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Willingham also alleges Manning attempted to “intimidate him, harass him, and impede his ability to report on the governmental activities of Manning and the McCurtain County Sheriff’s office, including actions that raise serious questions of competency and misconduct.”
The Board of County Commissioners “is liable for the torts of Manning to the extent she committed such torts within the scope of her employment” with the sheriff’s office.
Clardy, as the head of the sheriff’s department, “either knew of and acquiesced in the violations of Willingham’s constitutional rights or personally directed those violations,” the lawsuit alleges. “There is an affirmative link between the violation of Willingham’s constitutional rights and … Clardy’s actions and omissions…”
County officials seek dismissal of lawsuit
The Board of Commissioners, Sheriff Clardy and Captain Manning all filed motions to dismiss Willingham’s lawsuit on April 20.
Manning claimed she has no “official capacity” under Oklahoma law because the sheriff is “the official charged with final policy-making authority regarding the operation of the county Sheriff’s Office.”
The commissioners and the sheriff responded that the Sheriff’s Office “is not a legal entity subject to suit; Willingham “has failed to state a plausible claim” against the commissioners “for First Amendment retaliation”; Willingham “failed to state a claim for governmental liability against the defendants which is plausible on its face”; and the board of commissioners is immune from a lawsuit for slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court has decreed that a municipality or other political subdivision, such as McCurtain County, is immune from punitive damages.
The county officials are all represented by Howard T. Morrow of Collins Zorn & Wagner law firm in Oklahoma City.
Willingham is represented by Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton law firm of Dallas, Texas.
If Willingham prevails, the judgment would be paid with the proceeds of a special ad valorem tax collected on all real property in the county over a three-year period.
Lawsuit was filed before release of secret recordings
(NOTE: Chris Willingham filed his lawsuit on March 6, 2023, a month before The McCurtain Gazette began publishing explosive transcripts of secretly recorded, profanity-laced conversations among McCurtain County officials – including Sheriff Clardy, Captain Manning, Jail Administrator Hendrix, and County Commissioner Mark Jennings – that involved discussions about murdering Chris and Bruce Willingham, and beating and hanging Black men; official county business was discussed after meetings were officially adjourned; and officials joked and laughed about a woman who was killed in a house fire.
(Commissioner Jennings resigned from office on April 19, and Governor Stitt has called for the other officials to resign, too. State Attorney General Gentner Drummond confirmed he is investigating the McCurtain County officials.)